


Time To Come

by Missing_Ninja_History



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Child Abuse, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, I researched so much on Naruto that it wasn't worth it, It Takes A Village To Raise Kids, Kakashi's Great Teaching Skills TM, Multi, Neji was right 2k18, Non-graphic death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow To Update, slow to start
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-02-20 07:58:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 55,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13142379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missing_Ninja_History/pseuds/Missing_Ninja_History
Summary: Coming back from the infamous Wave mission Naruto ends up going to do one final prank that changes the canon timeline forever.





	1. Pranks and Interrogations

**Author's Note:**

> Please remember that this work is massively AU and that some information that people know about Naruto will be changed.  
> Also I would like to thank my two editors/idea bouncer off-ers/friends, Max and Jake for letting me use them and if they're reading let us rejoice in the fact that it's now a reality.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coming back from the infamous Wave mission Naruto ends up going to do one final prank that changes the canon timeline forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please remember that this work is massively AU and that some information that people know about Naruto will be changed.  
> Also I would like to thank my two editors/idea bouncer off-ers/friends, Max and Jake for letting me use them and if they're reading let us rejoice in the fact that it's now a reality.
> 
> Update from: 4/03/2018  
> Now thanks to another friend, Nick, for being a second beta reader and pointing out spelling mistakes that I missed the 5th time around.

There is something to be said about beautiful women. Since they know they are beautiful they know that they can get things more easily whether it be goods, services or companionship.

The woman who walked through the market place was certainly beautiful and certainly used her beauty to gain cheap food for a good price but there was something about her.

Something more than just a beautiful woman.

Ayano Hattori would look at her and say that she had very plain clothing for such a beautiful woman. As the oldest embroider in Konoha she would know beauty, beautiful women and know how a beautiful woman like that wouldn't be wearing cheap bright clothing like the orange top and cream skirt with no patterning like that. However she would keep watching her and think about all the ways and patterns that she could make for a woman like that.

Kiki Hisagawa would slowly blink at the woman who walked and talked her way through the market place where she guards. Collecting goods and names like it was leaves from a tree. Would keep her eye on her, watching to see when the other coin would drop.  
It wasn't because she was beautiful but because of the mass amount of raw chakra that the woman exuded --it would brush up against her in all the wrong ways-- as she walked up and down the stalls.  
Kiki could tell that the woman didn't realise that she was doing it nor did the civilians that tended the stalls either but the ninja off duty could; they could and they watched her too.

Tetsuo Kuku would be walking through the market place his eyes trailing the young woman as she walked by. He would be reminded of Mikoto Uchiha as she walks by in all the ways that mattered and watch this woman closely. He had never seen her before and he doubts that he'll see her again after this walk by. He would note her mischievous eyes and wide smile and suddenly not remember Mikoto Uchiha again. He might have had not known Mikoto Uchiha on a personal level but he knew enough to know that she didn't smile like that but the resemblance was there for all the world to see.

Many would watch this beautiful woman, many with the words Uchiha on their lips, many still wondering where she came from but most of all many would be watching when two polite not-ninja men approach her and lead her to a nearby alley way. None of them would stop these two polite not-ninja.

All of them would watch and gossip of where she came from and who was she only to come up with nothing.

* * *

**[an hour before]**

There was silence as Team Seven walked past the Southern Gate into Konoha. Each person was eager to get home and rest. Each one needed the comfort of their own room to recover fully from the mess that was their first 'C' ranked mission as a team.

He wanted to fill in the silence but Sakura had hit him a few times during the trip home and Kakashi had pulled him aside half way back to tell him it might not be the best time to talk to his teammates and that they might need some time to themselves.

Naruto turned to look at both Sasuke and Sakura to see if they were up for a conversation but Sasuke still looked a bit ill and Sakura looked tired. They didn't look right, no doubt that they wouldn't respond to Naruto even if he did talk. Kakashi might but he was busy reading his orange book.

The feeling of familiarity and life in one massive place where he can get lost and swept up in the streets without a care. It was home and it was safe.

Reaching the Ninja Academy Kakashi made Team Seven wait for a few minutes before another team to exit out of the missions room. The other team was an older trio of adults with two females and a male, they all bowed to Kakashi calling out "Hello, jōnin-san" before one of the females changed the little sign next to the door from occupied to free and walked off with the others.

"What was that about?" asked Naruto, scratching his head. He had seen this before but not towards Kakashi and certainly not without using his name as well.

Kakashi hummed, "Mah, mah, if I was to guess," Kakashi closed his book and hit it against his lips a few times, at least Naruto thought it was his lips, "it would be because they're career genin," and put his book away.

Sasuke snorted before staring at the wall.

Kakashi did his bright one eyed smile towards everyone.

"Well, no need to worry about that since none of you are going to be career genin,"

Sasuke snorted louder as if to express his opinion of what Kakashi said, and Kakashi gave him a extra bright smile that made him glare at the wall.

"Yep, none of you are going to be career genin," said Kakashi with a sense of finality before changing the sign over again and ushering all three of them into the Mission Assignment Desk office.

"Hokage-sama," said Kakashi, Sasuke and Sakura in unison.

Inside it was exactly the same as Naruto remembered a two months ago. Nearly the same in any case, Iruka wasn't in the room instead he had been replaced with a man with light brown hair, a chin guard, rectangle glasses and a frozen smile on his face. Naruto disliked him automatically. He looked like a jerk.

Sakura elbowed him in the side making him yelp in pain, "Greet. The. Hokage." she whispered harshly.

" Did you have to elbow me that hard, dattebayo?! Hi Jiji-san!" whined Naruto clutching his side. Partly for show but mainly because it really did hurt. Sakura was a hard hitter and seemed to know exactly where to hit to make it hurt extra hard.

The old man chuckled lightly.

"Team Kakashi you're late, I was expecting you a week ago," said the Hokage, his voice light and cheerful.

"Mah, well I guess we got lost on the road to life having a grand adventure where we went off to Sakura sato and drank tea with the leader's daughter," said Kakashi rubbing the back  of his head.

"Ah yes. _All_ of you drank tea with the leader's daughter," smirked the Hokage, his voice was dry but still happy.

Kakashi nodded, "Exactly,"

"I do believe that was chapter fifteen of Icha Icha Paradise, so please tell me again why you were late,"

"Ah, you caught me." Kakashi shrugged and went from slouching to standing up fully, "Our mission rank got bumped up from C rank to about A rank. We encountered the Demon Brothers from Kiri before we realised that the client had lied about the mission rank. Naruto-kun was briefly poisoned before he bleed it out. Upon questioning the client the reason he stated for lying was because he didn't have money for a higher rank."

It was weird hearing Kakashi sound serious. Like finding out that Iruka was a pervert or people could make terrible ramen somehow.

"And you believed him?"

Kakashi nodded, "Yes, Hokage-sama."

"And how many days outside of Konoha did you encounter the Demon Brothers from Kiri?"

"Half a day."

"Half a day and you didn't alert anyone?"

"No."

"Kakashi-sensei," sighed the Hokage, "continue on," the Hokage took an extra long drag of his pipe, the air soon turning to a slightly wooden scent mixed in with tobacco. It was the scent Naruto most commonly associated with the old man.

"We decided to carry out the mission and escorted the client back to his home. We went around to the south of the Land of Waves by boat in case we alerted any enemies. Once we reached the island we were attacked by Momochi Zabuza-san, one of the seven swordsmen from Kiri. I managed to get captured by Zabuza-san while Sasuke-kun and Naruto-kun rescued me then I defeated Zabuza-san. However he had an accomplice, not part of the bingo book. I suffered from chakra exhaustion and rested for three days."

"And you didn't tell anyone at all about this?"

"No time and barely any chakra left."

"Really now?"

"Of course! I'd never lie to you, Hokage-sama," Kakashi was probably doing his smile thing considering the way the officials behind the desk were frowning at him. Naruto didn't get why people hated the smile thing so much, sure it could be annoying and was probably fake but it didn't warrant frowning. It probably warranted concern but not frowning.

"Of course you wouldn't," said the Hokage dryly.

"We faced off against Zabuza-san and his accomplice again when the bridge was nearly complete. Sasuke-kun got injured non-lethally by the accomplice. The accomplice sacrificed himself when I was about to kill Zabuza-san. Gatō-san killed Zabuza-san but Zabuza-san killed Gatō-san and the rest of his mercenaries. Zabuza-san and his accomplice are now buried in Wave."

"That's quite the reason for being late," the Hokage took out his pipe and slowly lit the match for it before taking a few puffs, "so where is the proof of the kill?"

"Funny thing about that, the poor Wave islanders couldn't afford anything so we let them keep the proof of the kill, so they could start up their economy back up,"

"So you let them keep an A ranked proof of kill and let them get away with paying a C ranked mission?"

"That sums it up,"

The Hokage sighed, rubbed his forehead and took a few more puffs from his pipe.

"Right, collect your pay. Kakashi-sensei, you're going to report to me in two hours for a formal debrief to sort this out,"

"Thank you Hokage-sama,"

"Don't push it," warned the Hokage as he took more puffs of his pipe.

They bowed to the Hokage as they waited for Kakashi to walk up to the front towards the jerk looking guy to collect their pay. He talked a bit with the guy as he collected their pay and the other officials exchanged scrolls and notes to each other murmuring lightly.

It was so boring, the first time it was kind of fun being in the room since he could never sneak in or listen in, not even when scaling the side of the building to overhear, but Naruto got used to it after so many D ranked missions. There was nothing interesting about the room either apart from the scenery in the background but it was a classic Konoha background full of trees mixed with buildings.

Soon enough they had been ushered out of the room where another group was waiting outside. Kakashi turned the sign over again but before walking them outside the academy.

"Okay my cute little students, here's your pay," he distributed each of the envelopes to them, "now you have rest for two days so try not to get in trouble," here Kakashi looked directly at Naruto.

"OI! Why'd you look at me when you said that, dattebayo?!" shouted Naruto, it wasn't like he purposely got in trouble but sometimes a lot of people needed to be taken down a peg or two or constantly. He didn't do it anymore!

"Why'd you think, idiot?" asked Sasuke with sneer number one. Sasuke didn't have expressions so much as he had numbered faces that he used on will and most  of them were sneers or rage or I'm-better-than-you type of faces.

"Okay kids, time to go home, sleep in a bed, do what you need to, with that I'm gone. Goodbye, remember I don't want to see you for two days," said Kakashi as he vanished in smoke.

"Thank Kami-sama, I need a shower. I'm filthy from the road, 'bye everyone," said Sakura as she left. Naruto was slightly sad to see her go. It would have had been nice if she wanted to hang out a bit, maybe go to lunch.

Sasuke made a sound before leaving as well. Naruto guessed that it was his version of what Sakura said without any words and more in a bastard type way. He really should learn how to talk to people more. Naruto didn't remember Sasuke being like this when they were seven.

And with that Naruto was by himself again, needed to get back to his apartment and take stock of what he had left and how much he needed for kunai. Money was always tight and such a pain to calculate. Fruit was expensive and so were sweets, vegetables were gross but Iruka always made Naruto buy at least two each week and Ichiraku's ramen was always expensive but so good.

Naruto looked at his pay, to Sasuke's retreating back, and back to his pay again.

He had an idea.

He knew he shouldn't but habits were hard to kick so easily.

With that Naruto grinned.

* * *

**[Presently]**

To be honest the inside of the Interrogation and Torture division wasn't that plain, the walls were done in bright colours like neon green, fluoro yellow and orange; all in splashes like someone threw up in the most obnoxious colours ever and decided to just leave it there.

Personally Naruto thought that it was really cool; many would disagree. Loudly.

What wasn't cool was the fact Naruto was the one in the interrogation room.

Well, he didn't look like Naruto currently, he looked like a woman who was in her twenties with long dark hair claiming to be an Uchiha. How the hell did claiming to be an Uchiha while buying groceries land him in an interrogation cell?

It usually only landed him at the police station if something went wrong like getting caught.

So Naruto waited, twiddling his thumbs while he waited for someone to come. It was rather boring actually, apart from the bright colours there was only a table and two chairs. Occasionally the colours would flash words at him and wasn't that a bad sign?

Was that the word for honesty written in the wall?

Naruto leaned over to catch a glimpse at the wall until he was practically pressed against it. It wasn't there. Was he seeing things?

There was a bang from somewhere behind him that made Naruto jump.

"That's quite a jump you did there, miss...?" said a guy from behind him. Swiftly turning around Naruto could see the guy was blond, blonder than he was! He looked a little like Ino as well, if she was a guy.

"Oh, er...Sakura." Naruto shuffled in his seat, it was a pathetic name, he knew, he really did, especially since he knew Sakura and she would hit him if she knew he was using her name like this.

"Sakura-san? That's quite a pretty name,"  said the man said playing with his hair, a pen appeared in his hand like it was magic, "do you spell it like the cherry blossom? Or is it like virtuous blossom?" there was a file magically in his hand as well. Naruto couldn't resisted the urge to clap. The man looked amused, a wide smile on his face.

Naruto slammed his hands on the table, making the man tense a bit, and shouted "Wow! How did you do that!", making a show of pointing at the file in the man's hand to make it obvious of what he was talking about. He nearly blurted out a 'dattebayo' at the end and barely resisted; that would have gotten him caught out immediately.

He smiled, amused, "It's magic, all ninja know how to do it but would you answer my question?"  The man still looked pleasantly happy, surrounded by really cool colours.

Naruto panicked a bit, his smile fading. How did Sakura spell her name again? Was it in Kanji? Oh man if it was in Kanji he wouldn't be able to spell it.

Naruto slumped back into his chair, "Er, with hiragana." He was in trouble, like really big trouble for lying. He knew it and he knew the other guy knew it too, it was now a game to see how long he would last, and he would last if it was the last thing he did.

"So like cherry blossoms then," The guy nodded to himself, whistling to himself as he wrote things down on the file he had, "And you said that you were an Uchiha?"

Naruto carefully looked away from the man, thinking. What should he say? Yes or no? Should he stay silent? Deny it? He wanted to just say screw it and laugh it off as a prank, he could do that, couldn't he? His blood was thumping, like it was a game at the police station, another false move and he could be in trouble but this could be the greatest prank ever. The one that could be his legacy.

The guy paused for a bit before looking up, raised an eyebrow and gave Naruto a look, like he was Naruto's father or something. Usually that would annoy the heck out of him, annoy him unless Iruka was doing it, but this time it took all that Naruto had not to grin at the guy. His blood was still singing, telling him to say something, anything, but he didn't say a word. 

"Were you the one that said that you were an Uchiha?" asked the guy again. Naruto really didn't want to answer that. It seemed like a trap like whenever the mean people at the police station would ask him 'did you steal this?' or did you 'acquire that?'. It was stupid, there was no good way to answer it so instead he just smiled at the guy and kept quiet. It was difficult but it was going to be so worth it.

"It's okay, you don't need to answer that. Where did you come from?" Male older Ino kept smiling and it was starting to freak Naruto out. He just looked so amused by everything, usually people weren't this amused by Naruto, even when he smiled at them. Something was wrong.

Naruto shifted in his seat, perhaps it was time to release his transformation? But if he did that then he would lose his legacy! His last big prank!

No, he was going to stay here and just answer the questions until he was released. It happened sometimes when he didn't get an Uchiha officer back in the day and this man was no Uchiha. Naruto was going to win this.

"Where were you born?"

Naruto had to think carefully about what he remembered about the villages of Konoha. Something about flowers?

"Sakura sato...?" Naruto meant to do it as a statement, he really did, but it came out as a question. He was screwed, so screwed. If there was one thing he knew from sitting in a police interrogation cell is was that confidence was everything. The guy was going to win this at this rate.

The man wrote something down in his file again, "Ah, Sakura sato. Good place, I visited there a couple of times in my youth. Are the vegetable crops doing well?"

"Er, yes? I mean they were sprouting when I left the village." The man's mouth twitched a bit at the corners and drew something on the file. Damn did he get that wrong? Wasn't Sakura sato something to do with tea?

Naruto was panicking. He knew he was shaking, he couldn't help it. Nothing helped, not even biting the inside of his cheek and he was going to be found out at this rate. It was like he was eight all over again in a small interrogation cell after getting arrested for stealing.

"I'll make sure to buy some when they come to Konoha," the man shifted in his seat before getting up, "pardon me but I forgot something."

Was he doing good? Could he actually pull this off? Of course he could pull it off! He was Uzumaki Naruto, there was nothing he couldn't pull off!

Looking at the file the man left behind Naruto hesitated before shouting to the closed door, "Hey! Mister! You left things behind!"

He sighed before placing his hands behind his head and leaned back on his chair, legs spread to keep balance. Was he free or was this the calm before the storm? Should he even be worrying about it? Was this going to be the last great prank or a terrible decision?

Naruto looked around but there was the same bright walls and dull table that was there 5 minutes ago. Actually, that was a lie, there was the file and a pen sitting on the table.

The file...

Well if it wasn't important enough to take with him then he should make it interesting. Naruto grinned to himself and jumped into the other chair. Maybe a cool cover as well? It should be filled with spirals and some cool looking dragons too.

Naruto mused on should he look inside as well before shaking his head. If he was going to make this the last prank then he should make it memorable, awesome then he should make it look awesome all over. After making a few spirals on the cover and a terribly awesome dragon he opened the file.

There was only one page with a few sentences and a seal written. Naruto frowned and carefully turned the page but that was fully blank. This wasn't a profile file, Naruto knew profile files and personal files as well, this was different. The bastard was messing with Naruto! With a growl he drew some spirals and faces of the previous Hokage, it wasn't his best but he felt that it was as good as he was going to get while angry.

"In the cicada's cry, no sign can foretell, how soon it must die." Naruto jumped in his spot for the second time and turned around, the man from before was back, "I always liked that poem. I think it says a lot about life, don't you think?" the man leaned casually in the doorway, the dim greyness of the corridor drawing Naruto's eye more than the colours in the room.

"Huh?" Naruto blinked at the guy. What was he on about?

"Ah, I forgot to tell you but the file was trapped," said the guy smiling widely.

"What!" shouted Naruto jumping away from the file as if it was on fire, it probably was considering of what Naruto knew of seal and seal tags. There was a puff of smoke surrounding Naruto as he jumped away. It was odd since the smoke didn't make Naruto want to cough.

"It disrupts chakra, a seal version of kai. So Naruto-kun, it's nice to see you as you usually are. My name's Yamanaka Inoichi, I believe my daughter, Ino-chan, was in your class at the academy?"

Naruto nodded dumbly as he realised that he was no longer a woman. His prank...

"Naruto-kun, do you mind going back to your seat?" Naruto slowly got back to his own seat, looking anywhere but the man in front of him, the game was up and it was time to face the consequences.

Naruto draped himself over the table, just enough that he could stretch his arms out and have his cheek pressed to the table, "Am I in trouble?" mumbled Naruto. Ino's dad hummed as he sat down and looked at his newly awesome file.

"Well, I'm going to have to ask you a few questions and you're going to have to answer me honestly,"

Naruto sighed. He couldn't believe that he got caught like that!

"Now I'm going to ask some basic questions and while it may seem stupid I want you to answer them," Inoichi cleared his throat, "What's your name?"

Naruto sighed again, watching the table fog up from his breath. Before slowly getting into a normal sitting position and held up all of his fingers, "Uzumaki Naruto, twelve years old, Konoha, orphan, no relatives, genin, the old man is the Hokage, West Tobirama complex, and dragon head snake tail."

Naruto looked at his hands in despair, only nine of his fingers were down, "What did I miss?"

"Well, for one I have never heard the Hokage in an interrogation be called the old man over his real name and I believe your password was 'the beginning was like a dragon's head, great and majestic, the end like a snake's tail, tiny and pathetic'," Inoichi gave a little chuckle before writing things down again, "So we have name, age, place of birth, family, occupation, place of residence, who is the hokage, and the password. You left out education."

Naruto tilted his head a bit, squinting at the guy trying to see if he was trying to be funny or not before saying "Konoha Ninja Academy." 

Inoichi beamed at Naruto, it was disconcerting, "Now that the basics are done, I'll like to ask you why you were imitating an Uchiha at the market place."

Naruto scowled at Ino's dad. It was obvious of why he did it so there was no reason to beat around the bush, "If you probably have my file," Inoichi straight up laughed at that, what was so funny? "then you'll know I have a record of it."

"That's true but why the Uchiha clan?"

Truthfully Naruto didn't know why he chose the Uchiha clan, probably to do with that it had been a while since he has done an Uchiha and the fact Sasuke was being his usual bastard self. It was always an Akimichi or Inuzuka or even Iruka because Iruka always lets him transform into him.

Naruto shrugged.

"Now, don't be like that I need verbal answers,"

"It's a stupid answer."

"No matter how stupid it may sound I still need an answer," said Inoichi patiently.

"I wanted to do one last prank, that's all."

"So it isn't because after your teammate's near miss from your last mission that'd you revert back to what you were because it was safer? Was it the death of the enemy or perhaps the fact that your self-proclaimed rival could be killed?"

Naruto spluttered, "What! No! Why would I even care about that Bastard, dattebayo!"

"I wonder, indeed," Inoichi paused for a second before smirking, "Probably because the said teammate saved you? Or maybe because you're an orphan as well and want to bond with your teammate more?" the words infiltrated each corner of the room.

His shaking got worse.

He didn't need this! Why now? Why did the system suddenly care if he transformed into a clan member of some fancy ass clan now?! Naruto shot up from his chair. "I don't need to hear this! I've told you my answer, dattebayo! And if you don't believe me then you don't need to!"

Ino's father tensed slightly before relaxing. It was barely there but Naruto saw it. Luck only played some part in setting up a great prank, you didn't become great at pranks without seeing when people were going to fall into your trap.

"Oh I believe you when you told your answer but I don't think that's all. You don't just transform into a person that looks like your teammate and call yourself by their last name. You could have just stuck to your usual targets from the general civilian population if you wanted to do a prank but this time you picked the Uchiha clan. We want to know why."

"I just...felt like it." Naruto was starting to get uncomfortable again. What the guy was saying was totally wrong! He didn't like the bastard, he never liked the bastard, sure he saved him from Haku but it didn't mean that he would ever like the guy or even want to make him happy...

"People just feel like eating dango or ramen. They don't just feel like committing fraud without a reason."

Naruto stayed silent for a few moments, practically a miracle by anyone's standards who knew him.

"Everyone knows that Sasuke gets the best things; training, food, Sakura-chan likes him..." Naruto couldn't talk any more, his throat was starting to feel itchy and his eyes puffy and he wasn't going to cry. It was just the air in the room, it made his eyes watery and his throat itchy. Stupid air.

Inoichi twitched, paused, then looked up at Naruto, staring deeply into him. His eyes moved rapidly across his face before smiling again. The smile didn't reach his eyes.

"Excuse me but I just remembered something outside." Naruto pulled a face at the retreating guy's back and subtly wiped his face with his sleeve. Figures, just like everyone else he doesn't care for a great prank. He left his pen in the room again.

* * *

 

Inoichi was close to screaming. Or something like that. How did Konoha produce the most productive and seemingly normal ninjas out of all the great villages while having so many having psychological problems at the same time? His clan wasn't that big and less than a quarter were actually psychologists, they couldn't help everyone!

Was it something in the water? Knowing the second Hokage from his memoirs or Orochimaru there really could be something in the water thought Inoichi darkly.

"I have to give it to the kid, he can make a good infiltrator with those transformations. You alright?" a familiar gruff voice asked from his right, he must have seen something from my face thought Inoichi. Inoichi just ran a hand down his face.

"You _were_ watching the same thing I was, weren't you?" Inoichi couldn't keep the bitterness from his voice. What if Ino had to go through something similar? He had brief images of Ino sitting on the other side of an interrogation table, scared but acting like she wasn't and scrambling to tell a lie, he would try and fix whatever he could to help her out.

"Yeah, just fine. He'll make a good infiltrator if he learns how to lie better, his lies were poor but I have to give it to him, he had nerves of steel to keep up the act," said Ibiki, coming from him it was a huge compliment but somehow Inoichi didn't see anyone letting Naruto in T&I even if he was really good in it.

"So you're going to tear Kakashi-sensei a new one?" his companion asked happily. Ibiki and happiness didn't usually go together. Mostly because Ibiki had more scars and monsters in his head than under a genin's bed, but he was a decent man; not a good one, nobody working in T&I was a good person but a decent one and that's all that mattered.

"Can you even tear into Kakashi-sensei? He has sent more interrogators to psychologists than we have interrogated people. The most we can do is give him a light talking down that will be ignored."

Ibiki laughed, it was a low huffy sound that tended to give children nightmares also very good psychological torture on weak minded ninja. It was probably due to the seal on his chest- a body modification- that Inoichi definitely didn't know about but if he did know about the seal then he would say that he admires Ibiki's work ethic and ability to edge the line of a decent man and monster without going overboard. Unlike some people.

"I'll start the bet then, call in at five thousand ryou of what Kakashi-sensei is going to do. Separate bet at two thousand ryou for when he's going to show up," shouted Ibiki towards the corridors, every interrogator within the complex that wasn't working a person hearing it, "I bet he doesn't even do anything and shows up in two hours." Inoichi nodded his acknowledgement absentmindedly, playing with the end of his ponytail.

How was he even going to bring Naruto's problems up to his jōnin instructor? A simple 'You're not fit to even be a teacher' didn't quite cut it and a 'Do you even care?' didn't seem enough. Barely 'You couldn't even send him to therapy?!' cut it. This type of thing could take up to half a year or even a few years of therapy to get through and God knows what else he had too!

"I’ll call that! I bet he just whips out his books instead of listening, two and a half!" called a voice from down the corridor, no doubt Anko like usual. A few more shouts called up through the corridor including Kakashi never showing up, Kakashi stripping, Kakashi actually taking the damn psychological tests- must be one of his clan's members taking the bet under the mistaken hope that they could actually win something- and Kakashi bring his team with him.

"Kakashi-sensei actually listening to me, half an hour if he knows what's good for him." Ibiki laughed again and clapped him on his back a few times before leaving towards wherever he's needed next, probably the ama-no-magatama case.

Heading to the staff room, that was more of a bunker than any staff room he had ever known, he grabbed what hopefully was a hot pot of green tea but was more likely to be various simulants boiled in water with a bit of tea flavouring. Truly the brew of the tired and sick. He ruffled around the cupboards looking for something vaguely food like that wasn't straight up Anko's emergency dango supply in the fridge or stale biscuits.

There was a broken carrot that had a note that said, "For Watanabe-sama with love" complete with love heart because the people at the T&I sector were terrible, terrible people with messed up humour. Watanabe was a prisoner five days ago who was notorious for hating carrots and not going along with the carrot stick method.

Hiro had placed over a hundred carrots in the interrogation cell and the prisoner cell including one that said "Please insert me" with a love heart as well. Sometimes he didn't know how Hiro was even related to him, other times like with Watanabe he could understand how.

Sighing Inoichi doubted that Naruto would want overly strong tea with drugs in it and stale biscuits. What did young boys want to eat nowadays? Was it still Akimichi BBQ? Or chips? Or anything with a lot of carbs and protein in it?

Will Anko kill him if he took the dango? Well hopefully he can hide until she is appeased somehow, maybe buying her a dozen dango would do?

Inoichi went back to the interrogation cell with the ill-gotten dango in hand. Naruto still looked young and guilty looking as much as he did when Inoichi left, more so in fact considering he had vandalised the walls of the room with spirals and badly spelled words. To think a quarter of the budget went to those walls, particular the hidden seals used to impersonate random interval killing intent, now ruined within ten minutes thanks to what could amount to as a young kid.

Brilliant.

"Here, something while you wait." Naruto looked up and Inoichi swears that he saw stars in the kid's eyes. Could he ignore what Naruto did? If he kept silent then Ibiki would be the one to clean it up or anyone else but him.

"How long am I meant to stay here?" Naruto grabbed a few sticks and while Inoichi was confident that he would survive Anko's wrath he still did faintly flinch when Naruto started to bite into the dango. Looks like Anko trained them all too well. Maybe he should use those techniques on other people as well, it was something to think about later on.

"Just until Kakashi-sensei comes to get you." Naruto groaned and Inoichi felt for the kid, Kakashi wasn't going to arrive anytime soon. In fact Inoichi was fairly confident that the messenger was still trying to find Kakashi.

Inoichi really should be interrogating other prisoners but he wasn't going to leave Naruto by himself. Sitting down he blamed the fact that he was a father on why he was still in the room. Naruto gave him a weird look before chewing much faster on the dango and squinting at him. Inoichi pushed the file that he used towards Naruto as a hopeful hint to the boy that he should start drawing again, just not on the walls. Even if Naruto didn't know what he drew it was quite helpful to seeing how he was psychologically.

Predictably Naruto didn't even bother taking the file again. Quite a shame really, it wasn't even gimmicked this time around.

"Hey, what was the seal that you used? How did you do it, dattebayo!?" asked Naruto almost startling Inoichi, he was expecting that he would need to start talking before Naruto but it didn't seem so. Inoichi was glad for that, kids were not always the best to talk to without pushing them for answers.

"Well, to understand it you need to know the basics of fūinjutsu and how everything works like how numbers and writing come into play..." Naruto nodded earnestly and honestly it was adorable. It was times like this he wished that he had the option of being a teacher instead of head psychologist of T&I.

* * *

 

Inoichi really didn't mean to but he stayed until Kakashi came in, with no escort (and where was his escort?), teaching Naruto the basics of fūinjutsu. During that time he was going to think of a way to complain to Kakashi but instead got sucked in by the younger blond.  Naruto wasn't so bad with fūinjutsu despite his terrible handwriting and skill with numbers, quite creative as well even if it didn't work.

"Ah, Yamanaka-san, I heard that you had my wayward student." Inoichi smiled, the default one, usually shown to prisoners or shinobi that he felt neutral to, or in this case to Kakashi.

"You did hear right, Kakashi-sensei. If you will follow me." Naruto was starting to look nervous, Inoichi shot the kid a small more reassuring smile before getting up and walked out the room. Inoichi closed the door before heading to the small room on the side of the interrogation room. Kakashi gave a questioning glace or at least Inoichi was going to interpret it as questioning, it was somewhat hard to know when more than half the face was covered up and he was trained in masking his natural body language.

"You know if you wanted some private time with me then you should have said so but more importantly who won the bet?" Inoichi wasn't going to even question how Kakashi knew about the bet. It was just one of those things.

"What time is it?" Kakashi tilted his head a bit before looking around the room, it was all for show. Inoichi knew that Kakashi knew what time since he had an impeccable body clock from a couple of A ranked missions with the guy.

"A little past five."

Inoichi did the mental calculations. He vaguely recalled someone calling two hours but they were probably going to have to fight Anko for the prize pool since it was two hours and fourteen minutes, knowing Kakashi it was probably on purpose.

"Anko-san did." Kakashi nodded knowingly. Anko was going to win that fight and nobody was going to stop her if it came to that.

"How much am I worth?"

"Not as much as you were the second time you came here." Kakashi drooped a bit before rubbing his head, was that a false tell or a real one? Both? No, real, the way he ran his hand through his hair was not smooth enough to be a false tell.

"I guess I'm too much of a regular here, my fault, but what is Naruto-kun here for?"

"He impersonated an Uchiha." Kakashi ran his hand through his hair again. Inoichi almost felt a vicious pleasure at that, it was the real tell again. Twice within minutes, a miracle.

"That doesn't seem too bad."

"A random Uchiha that wasn't Sasuke Uchiha-kun." Kakashi definitely winced this time, this time it was a false tell but maybe a bit of truth in it?

"Will he get a black mark?" asked Kakashi, almost concerned, so very concerned in Kakashi language.

"Luckily for him it's merely a warning due to the fact that he wasn't able to purchase anything in the Uchiha name but it may go into a severe warning due to his record. As his team leader you are to talk to him about it."

"May I ask the reasons?"

"He's said that it's because he wanted to do one last prank and that he feels jealous of Sasuke-kun. He broke his usual MO by turning into an unknown Uchiha."

"Did he tell you that or did you ad lib it?"

"I simplified it. I'll be blunt, Naruto-kun has problems, more so than what an average genin has. You know that right?"

"Of course! Though that isn't as much as I thought it would be," Kakashi practically pranced away, did the man even get what he was saying? Naruto had issues that needed help and he was dancing out the door, hell the whole team probably had issues if this is what Kakashi was like and he couldn't help any of them!

Kakashi paused at the door way, Inoichi having no doubt that if there was a window that wasn't the interrogation screen the other man would be going through that instead, "Oh I heard that Ibiki-san said that Naruto-kun showed potential for infiltration. This true?" How Kakashi even got his information Inoichi would never know but dearly wished that he had the same resources. A vague thought started to brew in his mind, it was probably crazy but...

"Would you even be asking if you didn't know that it was?" Kakashi hummed before giving Inoichi a false one-eyed smile and leaving.

"Wait!" Kakashi turned around questioningly, and Inoichi knew it was now or never, "after his punishment could you let him do a mock infiltration mission later to test him? His crime record is strong for infiltration but due to his personality he was never pinged but this time..." Inoichi knew that he sounded desperate but a good infiltrator was worth their weight in espionage.

Kakashi hummed before walking out the door. Maybe Kakashi would actually heed his advice and he would win that bet.

* * *

 

Kakashi wasn't too sure what to do with Naruto, well he had some ideas but those types of ideas the Hokage forbid Kakashi from teaching to his students. Something about it may be good for ANBU but not good for genin.

Kakashi would normally selectively choose what he heard from the Hokage but this one he was forced to listen to. It wasn't fair but that was the life of a ninja; all work until you die because you'd accept nothing less. Maybe the mock mission would be good, this way he could do ANBU level training like he wants to while pretending that he that he was going genin level.

"My cute little student, what are we going to do with you?" asked Kakashi as he entered the interrogation room once more, it was far more decorated then he remembered and it wasn't just the blinding colours either. Naruto looked like someone killed his puppy through the most heinous of tortures and Kakashi had no doubt that Inoichi was still watching from behind the carefully hidden screen.

"You're not going to yell at me are you?" Naruto looked pathetic, his head looking down and muttering. Kakashi looked around the room, carefully not looking at Naruto because otherwise he'd be looking at the image of his dead teacher looking all depressed, which was something he really didn't need.

"Have I ever yelled at you before?" Kakashi had to be careful and stuff with kids, everyone kept telling him that. He was sort of glad he didn't have kids of his own.

"No...but I did something wrong didn't I?"

"Nope," said Kakashi purposely popping the p.  Naruto whipped his head up so fast that Kakashi was worried that he'd broken his neck, that would be a different way to put as a epitaph. Kakashi could already see it 'dead by self-inflicted broken neck, age twelve'.

"What do you mean I'm not in trouble? They don't take people into T&I for no reason!"

"Well that's true but your only mistake was getting caught. Ibiki-san said that he thought you had a career in infiltration, isn't that great?"

"Er..."

"Yep, it's very good. It means that you have a future and a future is important," when Kakashi said a future he meant that Naruto was probably not blacklisted or anything, that would be bad for his dreams if he was a genin forever. Career genin was just that; genin.

He was in a mind to stay in the interrogation cell, just so he watch the interrogators get twitchy when he leaves, or leave to have a talk with Naruto. In the end it was when Kakashi started to see words written in the paint of the walls that weren't badly written on them that he had decided what he needed to do.

"Okay, time to leave." Naruto practically sprinted to the door and would have had gone out it too if Kakashi didn't catch him by the neck of his jacket. Kakashi completely ignored the "Hrk!" sound Naruto made.

"You don't even know where we're going," Naruto made a choked questioning noise, "just because Ibiki-san said that you have potential doesn't mean that you won't be punished, it just means that T&I isn't going to punish you."

Naruto made a wounded sound before allowing himself to be dragged away with Kakashi. Kakashi had no doubt that if Naruto really wanted to he would find a way to try and escape or Inoichi would help Naruto escape.

They walked in silence to the end of the corridor where they were met by a spare interrogator- a non-clan member- who held a pair of blindfolds up. Kakashi would have had something inappropriate had the blindfold been for him but it was for Naruto instead and there was no way he was going to let Naruto think about that. Naruto wrinkled his nose when the blindfold came on a tad too tightly but Kakashi gave the interrogator a cheerful smile and made a note to set his dogs on the guy while signing his name in a 'guestbook' with a hint of his chakra.

Kakashi placed a hand on Naruto's shoulder and pushed him to the way before the interrogator rushed to stand in their way.

"I'm to escort you both to the exit." Kakashi gave the guy a one-eyed smile but the guy didn't budge, how annoying.

"Really there's no need for you to do so, I know my way out by now." The guy didn't look amused. Kakashi sighed before releasing killing intent on the guy. It also had an unintended side effect of making Naruto shiver uncontrollably, which wasn't so much of a bad thing since he was planning on getting them to do killing intent training after they completed water walking.

The guy bit his lip, "Sir, please, I need you to stop that otherwise I'll have to force you to stop."  Kakashi chuckled a bit, low and fake, and quickly stopped releasing his killing intent. It probably felt like a shock to the system. Naruto made another choked sound.

"Mah, mah, there's no need to use violence. We'll let you do your job," said Kakashi with the utmost compliance that he could muster at this time, carefully ignoring the fact he just released killing intent on the guy. If asked he was going to blame an open interrogation room. He was also probably setting a bad example for Naruto but he had to learn at some point and what kind of teacher would he be if he didn't teach his cute little students?

The interrogator glared at him before leading the way through the corridors. He went quicker than he should have, what with a blindfolded genin in tow, however Kakashi was determined that they wouldn't be left behind.

Was it stupid? Yes. Was it worth it? The glare from the interrogator when they left the building certainly made it so. Especially with Naruto cheering when the blindfold came off.

Kakashi carefully lead Naruto to the training grounds making sure that they didn't meet anyone that they knew, no doubt Sasuke would have had already heard about his unknown family member and been told that it was only false rumours. It was a rather long walk from the T&I to the training grounds, Naruto was carefully not looking at him and it was cute that he thought that Kakashi wouldn't know.

The grounds were the same grounds as they always were, like they had been for generations of ninja that had the honour to train at Third Training Grounds. It was also a very fancy way of saying that Kakashi had bullied, subtly of course, every other ninja from the training grounds until they just gave up using it a few years ago. It felt good to do so.

They stood there awkwardly. Neither wanting to break the silence. Kakashi didn't mind the silence but he knew he had to punish Naruto somehow, at least to teach him how to not get caught. He rubbed his head and sighed.

"By now Sasuke-kun would have had heard about his mystery relative and been told that it was all false," Naruto flinched and looked down, "You'll need to apologise to him, first thing and find a way to make it up to him. Next you will need to train with me, you'll be pushed to your limits."

Naruto nodded.

"Naruto-kun, do you understand why you have to apologise to Sasuke-kun?"

"The bastard- Sasuke-kun...I messed up. I thought that I could make a really awesome prank where I'd pretend to be Sasuke-kun's family member and I don't know, buy something and play pranks on people...I don't know where his family went. There used to be a lot of them, I used to be arrested by a fair bit of them.  Kagen-san gave me tea in between interviews when drunk old guys would yell at me, he had a scar on his cheek that he said was from a cat scratching him."

Kakashi hadn't realised that Naruto was in contact with the Uchiha clan that much, not enough to even remember some of them by name at least.  He knew that Naruto had a record but not like this.

"Sasuke-kun's family had all died. That’s why everyone treats Sasuke-kun so differently, all his family died when he was seven. One of his family members decided to kill everyone one day. They said that he snapped and planned it for a few days; he started off by murdering his cousin by a river." Kakashi knew that he sounded bored, like it was routine. It reminded him too much of ANBU and why child prodgies aren't allowed through any more.

"I didn't...I knew that it was something big. Nobody would tell me where they went. Is Sasuke-kun lonely?"

Kakashi hummed but didn't say anything.

"If I get Sasuke-kun a family then do you think he'd forgive me?"

"Not if you create them other than that, sure, I don't see why not but it's not like Sasuke can get adopted. He's going to be a clan leader in the future, you do know that right?"

"Oh course I do! That's why all the girls in my class were all over him!"

"Just checking."

"That's it, dattebayo! What if I get him a girlfriend? Then later on they can have a child together, dattebayo!" Kakashi resisted laughing, he really did but honestly it was too funny!

"Oi! Don't laugh, dattebayo!" shouted Naruto angrily. It would be so funny if Naruto didn't look so serious. No, he was wrong, it was more hilarious because he was serious. Obito would get a laugh out of it as well when Kakashi goes to the memorial stone later.

"So you think that if Sasuke gets a girlfriend then they can have a child together?" asked Kakashi wryly. Was it bad that he thought he was starting to get too old for this? To think it had been just 4 months since he first started teaching the genin.

"Well you need a guy and a girl to have children." Naruto said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world and at least the education system didn't fail him in this regard. It was terrible if he had to give them the talk.

"You do know that sperm for young men like yourself aren't really potent until later on, right?" Naruto looked confused. Please, please, please no.

"Huh? What are you talking about? Sperm? Potent? Dattebayo?" Naruto looked horribly confused. Kakashi just felt like the whole world was on a joke and he was a punch line that he was just starting to realise now. It was like a full circle of bad decisions involving the talk, though if that was the case then he was a full generation too early to give the talk.

"Okay, a reminder to give you guys the talk. The point is that Sasuke can't have children until he's sixteen."

"What talk? But I didn't know that there was an age restriction for children. I guess there is plenty of time to find Sasuke a girlfriend then, dattebayo!" Naruto is adorable. Kakashi could laugh at him for days.

"How are you going to do this?" Naruto looked like he was seriously considering everything.

"Well I guess I could follow people...or I could make it a mission, dattebayo! The old man would let me make it a mission!"

Kakashi was pretty sure that the Hokage wouldn't do that if Naruto just asked him but if Kakashi made it a mission then he could use that to teach his cute little students how to evade spies, give false information and if he happened to have fun laughing at everyone then it would also be a bonus.

It wouldn't be the first time that a teacher made a false mission against their team in the name of good will, he knows Jiraiya had done so once against Minato, but Minato was older of course when the mission happened.

"I could help you make it a mission, to get Sasuke-kun to forgive you but keep it a secret because Sasuke-kun might not think of it as a good idea," said Kakashi sweetly. Naruto just beamed at him like he just gave him the best present ever. Shouldn't he know that when things are too sweet that they're probably not true.

"Thanks! You're the best teacher ever, dattebayo!" shouted Naruto. There was a faint warmth from within his chest where he was pretty sure he lost a while ago but wasn't too sure. It startled him a bit, far more than a bit but he didn't show it.  Maybe teaching wasn't so bad.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fanfic is completely and utterly out of sync with canon timelines if only because the canon timeline is so weird and messed up and how did like 4 world wars go into about 65 years? So at the end of each chapter I'll give canon timeline information so you too can burn with a rage like I do when I remember the canon timeline.  
> This chapter's information is that Konoha at the start of Naruto was 62 years old. Wild.


	2. Consequences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also backstories have been changed for characters within this chapter. This has been a warning. Also a OC appears.

Sasuke sighed as he packed everything he used for self training, there had been a messenger saying that Kakashi had called the emergency team meeting at their usual training ground and would very much like him there. In that exact wording.

It's not like he didn't know what it was about but at the same time he didn't want to go. Instead he walked around the long way around to the training grounds.

There was a few weirdos that had been walking around on their hands and shouting encouragements to each other that he made sure to fully ignore. They were probably clanless ninja in the first place.

Along the way four separate counts of shop and stall owners that he had never talked to before, and a few females from his academy class stopped him to give him the 'news'. It was just 'Have you heard?' or 'Have you seen her?' over and over again. It was worthless and stupid and it took everything he had not to shout at them to leave him alone. 

He had dragged his feet to the area, knowing that he had a few hours in the least before Kakashi arrived as well.

The woman who had apparently showed up claiming to be his relative, he knew that she had been whisked by higher ranked ninja by various witnesses but he...he didn't know if he wanted the woman to be real. He had been told that she wasn't even related to him, that she had only been in for it for the prestige.

However a chance of a family again.                                                                                                 

Sasuke curled his lips up into a sneer.

It made him want to hit something.

It should make him feel something warm but instead it left him feeling angry instead, he knew he shouldn't be feeling like this but he did. There was probably something missing that he had. He knew he had it but it wasn't working.

It wasn't and he knew that it wasn't working but couldn't tell how to make it work again.

It was too soon and yet not soon enough when he arrived at the training ground that they usually used. He picked his usual tree and leaned against it. It didn't take long for Sakura to show up and try and start small talk. He tuned her out when he realised that she didn't actually have anything important to say. This is what he gets for trying to actually listen to a teammate.

Shaking it off he made a mental list of things to practice after training. There were a few more chakra exercises that he wanted to have a closer look at again since some of the examples that they gave were odd. He was beginning to suspect that he had to use the sharingan on them to see the examples for them or something else that he had lost.

Eventually he got bored of thinking of more training and only so much anger he can hold. There was only so much training you could think about before you realised you couldn't do any of it because you were waiting on your teacher to show up who doesn't show up.

It felt like hours of waiting for Kakashi. And Naruto. It was odd that Naruto wasn't at the training ground already. Sakura had gone silent a while ago. He'd rather prefer her like that. It meant that he wasn't annoyed by her and could think for once without having to avoid her and every girl around his age.

If Naruto had been there then at least he could get some light sparring or an idea of a trap to set for their teacher. They were late. Kakashi, it was normal, in Naruto it was wrong unless he had something off or overslept.

It would be just like the dumbass to oversleep on the day of an 'important' meeting.

Sasuke had chosen to watch the way the sun hit the leaves on the ground. It was calming and why haven't he watched the passage of the sun before? He found out quickly after the first few minutes.

It was because it was mind numbingly boring.

Nothing changed, apart from maybe a few leaves changing places thanks to a light wind. He was half tempted to set a minor fire ball to the leaves or just leave and get some more weaponry from the blacksmith, at least that would be a better use of his time.

Sakura tried to get his attention a few times more but he tried to pay her no attention. He hoped if she didn't get any more attention she'd just leave him alone or become useful.

So she ended up sitting in the grass grabbing handfuls and just tossing it around her and plucking small flowers and trying to make flower crowns. It wasn't working and she ended up tearing it apart when it didn't go her way.

There were a few sounds of twigs breaking and footsteps, enough to make Sakura get up from her little patch of land. He could see Kakashi long before he saw the man's face, his hair too distinctive not to be Kakashi. There was something else behind him.

Naruto and Kakashi arrived together.

As in Kakashi was walking and Naruto was looking downcast next to him. It was weird. Like the sky was green or cherry tomatoes would taste super sweet every time you bite into one.

Sasuke heard Sakura mutter to herself, "Is the world ending?"

To make sure Sasuke looked to the sky. The world was ending. It wasn't even noon yet and Kakashi had arrived. Naruto was late, Kakashi was early and Sasuke was deeply confused. Not that he would show it on his face but still. It wasn't going to be a good day at all.

"Ah! My cute little team, you may have wondered why I called you here for an emergency meeting today. Well, Naruto-kun has something to tell you guys before you hear it from anyone else. Naruto-kun."

Kakashi pushed Naruto to the centre of the group. He looked nervous and possibly scared but that couldn't be Naruto. Naruto was never scared or nervous. He was always annoying and cheerful beyond what could be possible.

Sasuke activated his sharingan to search for a possible infiltrator. It couldn't be Naruto.

"I-er, I did a stupid thing," Naruto looked to Kakashi who just nodded, "I pretended to be Sasuke-kun's relative." It was Naruto.

It was god damn Naruto all this time.

"And?" asked Kakashi staring holes at Naruto.

"And I got caught?"

"And?"

"Oh! I'm sorry Sasuke-kun for using your clan name and pretending to be part of your clan and that he can punch me if he wants to, dattebayo!" Kakashi rolled his one eye and sighed like he doesn't even care that Naruto pretended to be a member of his clan.

"YOU IDIOT! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO SASUKE-KUN! YOU SHOULD BE PUT AWAY FOR THE CRIME!" shouted Sakura waving her arms in a threatening manner causing Naruto to wince and hide behind his arms.

It was Naruto who did that stupid thing. Who took away his chance at a family with a stranger. Who pretended to be related to him. This clanless idiot was the cause of his problems.

He couldn't advance because of this idiot. He couldn't avenge his clan because of this idiot. He couldn't have a family again because of this idiot.

Everything was Naruto's fault.

There was a bubbling feeling that came maybe from  his chest or maybe from his stomach or maybe just from every part of him; he couldn't tell and didn't care to tell where it came from.

All he knew was that it was a good feeling, it lit every part of him up. It was almost indescribable but if he had to give it a name it would be rage. Rage felt good. Better than what the hollowness felt.

Walking to Naruto, he stood right in front of him, Naruto scrunched his face up, all eyes closed as well, as he tensed. It was stupid looking and made Sasuke want to punch his face even more.

Naruto made a confused sound as he opened an eye before his whole body seemed to uncurl and become loose again.

It was really more like watching the whole thing in 3rd person. He saw himself ready the punch but it didn't click that it was him getting ready to punch Naruto.

He wasn't even in proper form like how the Uchiha clan did things or even how the academy taught them how to do things. It was stupid. Why was he doing something stupid?

Naruto was still staring at him, slowly as if he was in water.

Distantly he knew that he should at least pull his punch.

He didn't want to.

Instead he put everything that he had into that one punch.

Just one punch will do.

Then everything sped up.

There was a crack, a orange blur, shouting, and everything swimming irregular way.

He could barely see. Breathing in a calculated way he could start to see again.

Bit by bit.

There was still shouting going on, he distantly realised that it was Sakura. Screaming about why would he do that and that he didn't need to do that and Kakashi-sensei let go.

He was going to have to thank Kakashi later. He'll go along with his stupid schemes as a thank you and not complain about the next d rank mission.

Naruto was in a pile next to a tree. There was a few leaves on him and he was ass up on the ground. The tree looked dented in a way that suggested a lot of splinters on the thing that hit it. Sasuke felt vaguely proud. He did that. He was strong enough to do that. His rage was strong enough.

Naruto groaned as he pulled himself up, half his face was a wreak. There was already a deep purple, almost black, bruise along his cheek and his nose was twisted to the side in a way that said it really shouldn't be able to do that. There was also blood coming out of his mouth, not drops, but a small trickle that was still coming out and a large river of blood from his nose.

He looked terrible. Sasuke heard Sakura whimper from next to Kakashi. Naruto groaned again, struggling to stand up. There were probably splinters in his jacket.

"Why didn't you roll with the punch?" Sasuke heard himself shout. It didn't sound anything like him at all, it had too much anger and confusion, something he usually only gave to _that_ Man. All this anger of this stupid idiotic inferior waste of space! The other being didn't even deserve his anger!

He struggled to breath, the only thing he could see was that idiot and he couldn't hear a thing, it was tiresome, he had to _concentrate_ on breathing, actually concentrate on it!

He took shallow breathes in, to make sure that nobody could tell that he lost control of his own body, how embarrassing would it be if Kakashi knew that he lost control like this? He might not even teach Sasuke any new techniques for weeks!

He was starting to feel hollow again. Hollow was good, hollow was safe, nothing but rage could touch him when he was hollow.

Naruto just groaned in reply. Kakashi walked over to him and started to touch his face and check him over. Sasuke knew that he should be punished for releasing his rage on a fellow ninja but couldn't feel within himself to care.

"Well, he has a broken cheek bone along with severe bruising, internal mouth bleeding ,  and a broken nose, maybe even a concussion. I don't think he should be talking for a while. I'll consider this Naruto-kun's punishment instead of the one I was going to see so I'm not going to punish Sasuke-kun for punching Naruto like this but if it ever happens again I will punish him, the both of them," Kakashi picked Naruto up from the ground and started to dust him off,  "Naruto-kun, you're not to impersonate people from different clans ever again. Sasuke-kun, you're not allow to harm another Konoha ninja like this again."

Sasuke wasn't going to protest to this. He got a free punch to the loser, enough to damage him for a while, and get away with it.

"Kakashi-sensei, why did Naruto-kun impersonate a member of Sasuke-kun's family?" asked Sakura, slowly getting closer to the duo near the tree. Sasuke followed her, to see the damage that he caused closer, his hand was throbbing and he didn't want to see the damage that he did to it.

"Mah, that's a bit of a difficult question. I guess I could say that he has a record of it."

"A record? As in a criminal record? Naruto-kun is a criminal? Why is he even allowed to be a ninja if he's a criminal?!" Sakura looked panicked like Naruto was going to up and murder all of them right there and then. Naruto wouldn't do that, Sasuke refused to believe that Naruto was a criminal. It didn't fit his image of the loser yet again it didn't fit his view of _that_ Man.

"A minor criminal record. The way the civil court system works is if you're training to be a ninja then any minor crime that you've done becomes null unless you fail you're genin exams or drop out. If you pass your genin exams then any minor crimes that you've done get swept under the carpet so to speak. If you've done a major minor crime like something important stolen from the Hokage's tower-" Naruto winced notably, probably from a splinter in his side, "- you could get a note in the your file that you could be quite good at things like infiltration or rescue and recover missions."

"How could you get a major minor crime from stealing important things from the Hokage's tower?" asked Sakura dubiously, obviously trying to think it over. Sasuke was quite interested as well if it could push his career further then he would steal something from the Hokage's tower.

Kakashi did his annoying one eyed smile, "Well I'm glad you asked that. The answer is circumstances like if you return it," Sakura looked dubious and Sasuke was pretty sure that he looked that way as well, "but also if you commit the crime while in the academy. If you tried the crime while as a genin you'll be charged for treason against the Hokage and the state for stealing important documents. So all the minor crimes that you can be charged with is best to do while you're still in the academy while you can't be charged."

"How does this apply to Naruto-kun? I doubt he stole anything from the Hokage's tower. He only does stupid pranks against the academy teachers and the Hokages' Rock." Kakashi chuckled a bit and hummed in agreement.

"Mah, Naruto-kun has a criminal record for various minor things, of course he was caught many times for them but in this case it was impersonating a clan member, which was on his record, but his MO was different this time and none of the clans have pressed charges so they end up being classified as only minor crimes. Naruto-kun wasn't charged this time since he didn't end up buying anything or truly doing anything bad before he was taken away to be interviewed to see if he was a real Uchiha."

"So you're saying that I could get Naruto-kun charged with impersonating my clan?" Naruto gulped and winced as he looked nervous again.

"You could but since you already punched Naruto-kun that would be rather overkill wouldn't you agree?" Kakashi said everything sweetly, too sweet. There had to be a hidden catch there but he couldn't see it. Why can't he see it? He was an Uchiha, he had to be able to see underneath the underneath.

"So on behalf of Naruto-kun since he can't talk currently, would you not sue him?" asked Kakashi. Sasuke didn't actually want to say yes or no so he clicked his tongue instead earning him that annoying one eyed smile from Kakashi. Was it his imagination or was that one eyed smile super annoying this time?

"When are we going to do training?" he asked, eager to just stop thinking of the fake family member and just get stronger. It didn't matter to him anyway.

"Well, how is your hand?" Sasuke froze, not that it showed but he froze internally. His hand had gone from the hot throbbing that it did to a full out pain during the span of the chat. He knew if he looked down at it that it would probably be red and the knuckles would also have minor patches of blood along where the skin has split.

Sasuke didn't reply. Sakura looked like she was star struck all over again, he tried his hardest to ignore it. Kakashi chuckled. Again.

Kakashi walked towards Sasuke, he tried not to flinch he succeed, of course since he was a Uchiha, but he was still was annoyed that he felt like flinching.

"We'll train," Sasuke wanted to cheer, internally of course, "but after you and Naruto-kun go to the hospital."

"But I can train!" His hand really did hurt but it was the principle of the thing. One day training lost would mean one day lost to avenging his clan. He couldn't do it.

"A good ninja knows when to step down and get treatment. You're no use to the village if you are too injured to do a mission. You let down your teammates, your mission and your village if you do that."

Sasuke wanted to protest but perhaps he could use his gratitude towards Kakashi on this instead; to forgive him for making him go to the hospital. Sighing through his nose Sasuke started to turn towards the hospital. Kakashi beamed at him, there was no other way to describe it. It made Sasuke want to punch Kakashi.

He could hear Sakura trailing after him, talking about whatever her mind lead her to, and a shuffling that caused Kakashi to turn around more than once that told him Naruto was also following. Good. The Uchiha clan was meant to lead people and stand tall above everyone else as was their due.

* * *

 

The hospital was just as he remembered it when he was seven; many people with too much time on their hands and a clinical smell that surrounded the building like a personal defense.

Sasuke could feel his breathing increasing and mentally scolded himself for his body's reactions. He was an Uchiha, he could do anything. Walking through the doors of the hospital there was a few people around, some of them are civilians including a pregnant woman and several ninja. It was obvious which was which considering there was a segregated area for civilians and ninja, unofficial of course but it was still there.

Kakashi walked forward, "Stay along the waiting area, I'm going to talk to the receptionist." and went to go talk to someone at the front counter while the rest of them waiting in the ninja area.

Sakura sat down first, a few seats away from one of the ninja, followed by Naruto who just sat down, if you could call it that, like his legs just gave up on him. Sasuke decided that he could stand, he didn't need to sit down like the clanless idiots that he had to put up with.

There was something odd going on. Sasuke had noticed that while they were in the hospital nobody had come up to them, he was pretty sure if a medic saw how injured Naruto was then someone would usually go up to them to at least see what was wrong and there were medics around. Instead they had a wide berth around them, even other ninja in their section had moved slightly away from them.

He didn't know what was going on. It couldn't be Naruto, because while Naruto was an idiot he shouldn't be able to get a reaction like this, and it couldn't be Sakura because it's Sakura. It must be him. He hasn't done anything yet to warrant this type of behaviour.

Did they think that he had gone to the hospital because of that night? Did they think that he was weak?

Sasuke clenched his fists into balls and stood tall and proud.

He wasn't weak. He didn't need to be in here. He was only doing this for his dumb teammate and gratitude to his teacher. Nothing was wrong. He was fine.

Sasuke could see Kakashi lazily wondering back to the trio. He really tried hard to remember that he owe gratitude to the guy.

"Hey, my cute little students-" a ninja within hearing range snorted, "-we're right down this way." Kakashi pointed to the stairs and each of them groaned before moving to where he pointed. He made them walk up two flights of stairs before they reached where they were going.

"Okay!" Kakashi clapped his hands, "Sasuke-kun, you're in room one hundred and fifty-one," Kakashi pointed to the room nearest to the stairs, "Sakura-chan, make sure that you follow him into the room. Naruto-kun, you're with me in room one hundred and fifty-six." Kakashi grabbed Naruto and walked him down the corridor to Naruto's room.

Sakura knocked on the door before Sasuke grabbed the handle and just let himself in. It wasn't like the doctor wasn't expecting patients. Inside it was white walls and charts of the human body with odd cabernets on the wall with a white plastic divider.

"Come i-well I guess you're already in. The doctor isn't in just yet, he left to go to the toilet," said a young man, more of a teenager then anything. He had light grey hair like Kakashi, maybe a bit darker than Kakashi's hair, and very dark grey eyes with round glasses. He wore a friendly, inviting smile.

Sasuke stared at him suspiciously, he looked young, too young, "Who are you?"

Sakura made an odd sound behind him and was probably fretting.

"I'm the doctor's assistant," the man smiled in a self-depreciate way, "I'm Yakushi Kabuto, I'm in training to be a doctor so I have to watch his cases and what he does to learn from him."

"Wow! You must be very smart to be a medic-nin!" exclaimed Sakura as she walked closer to Yakushi.

"Not at all, I just couldn't think of anything else that I would rather be. It's in my family. Do you mind if I try to diagnose what is wrong?" Sakura blushed faintly before nodding for Sasuke.

"If you aren't the doctor then you can diagnose what's wrong with Sakura-chan than me." Sasuke crossed his arms, ignoring the pain the shot up from his hand and successfully resisted the urge to hiss.

"Well, if that is your decision then I can't do anything about it since I'm only an assistant and not yet fully trained. Sakura-chan, right?" he waited and smiled patiently until Sakura nodded, "may I try to diagnose you?"

"Oh but I'm perfectly healthy!" exclaimed Sakura.

"Please? At least it would help with my training." Yakushi looked at Sakura with earnest eyes until Sakura nodded her consent and was lead to the bed near a table. She got up on to the bed, faintly swinging her legs as she waited for Yakushi to grab files and pens off of the table and sit in the chair next to the table.

"Do you mind if we pretend it's an actual doctor's visit?"

"Not at all,"

Yakushi flashed her a cheerful smile before telling her "thanks."

"So what's your full name, age and rank."

"My name's Haruno Sakura, I'm twelve and I'm a genin on Team Seven."

"So what seems to be the problem?" Sakura look startled, her mouth soundlessly echoing the question and a faint frown placed itself on her face.

"I don't think I have anything wrong. I mean I'm getting a few headaches but I thought it was from the diet that I'm trying." Yakushi looked closer at Sakura when she mentioned the word 'diet'.

"Diet?"

Sakura nodded, "Yeah, I got it from my aunt. She told me that to get thinner you should eat twice a day with small serving proportions and every time you feel hungry you take a nap." What a stupid thing to do.

Yakushi smiled warmly at Sakura, "Do you often try diets like this?"

Sakura nodded happily. Sasuke could barely keep the disbelief off of his face. He was surrounded by idiots, he knew that Naruto was an idiot but he was never too sure about Sakura fully but this cemented it.

"Do you mind if I do a check up with my chakra?" the warm smile on was still on his face, it was starting to get annoying. Sakura nodded again. Yakushi got up from the chair to walk next to Sakura and flash through several hand signs, his hands flashing green.

"This may feel weird, it's normal." Sakura hummed as she watched the green chakra touch her chest with one of his hands on her forehead, releasing a small gasp mid way through. Sasuke shifted his stance a bit, in case it was an attack.

"Okay, I'm stopping now. You may feel a bit of a loss," Yakushi stopped the chakra to his hands and slowly went back to his table, "I think you may have a iron deficiency from the dieting so add a few more pieces of red meat to your diet but I'm not sure so you better get a check up as well when the doctor comes back. Otherwise you're in good health, I'd also recommend changing your diet to something with a more balanced diet with bigger serving proportions. Your body needs more nutrients to go stronger and taller, worry about thinning diets later on in life."

"Thank you," said Sakura but in a tone of voice that she normally used on Naruto; the one that indicated that she didn't believe anything he said and flashed Yakushi a doubtful smile as she got off of the bed and practically skipped to Sasuke. Yakushi wrote something within the file he grabbed before getting more paper from the table.

"Oh! Here's a little note for a diet that I'd recommend for you. It's a balanced diet for young women when they're growing up." Sakura looked startled by the fact that Yakushi practically sneaked up to her to give her a piece of paper. Yakushi had silent feet, probably years of being a chūnin. She gave it a brief glance before stored it in her weaponry pouch, folding it neatly to make it fit in her pouch.

Yakushi looked around for a second, eyes lingering at the clock on the wall, "The doctor is rather late; it's very unusual. I'll just go get him, shall I? Please wait a moment," before he walked slowly out the door like he was trying to delay when the doctor was to arrive.

"He's a very friendly doctor isn't he?" said Sakura trying to make small talk.

Sasuke made a non committal gesture with his arm looking around the office more. It was very impersonal. No photos and no paintings but medical posters littered the office.

There was a few minutes of silence. Sakura shuffled while Sasuke wondered around the room, checking the scrolls and books but they were all titles like 'Medical deduction' or 'Major chakra points'. Sasuke flipped through some of the books, nothing catching his attention. There wasn't any personal photos either.

The door opened again as Sasuke had just placed back the book he had been flipping through.

"Uchiha Sasuke-kun? I'm Matsuoka Akira-sensei. What seems to be the problem?" Doctor Matsuoka said in a way that was almost rude but not quite, just bordering in a way that could almost start another ninja war. 

One of the first things Sasuke noticed about Doctor Matsuoka was that he was a stocky, almost fat, short man in his thirties with noticeable balding  maroon hair and long brown eyes. The next was his lips downturned and brows wrinkled as if waiting for the bad news to happen at any moment. There was a faint scar that crept from underneath black turtleneck in a diagonal fashion just shy of reaching his mouth.

He was also carrying a file.

"Kakashi-sensei wanted my hand checked out." Doctor Matsuoka didn't look offended by Sasuke's brisk words but instead walked with the pace of a man who had better things to do and didn't have to be here but was here so you better be worth it. It was the type of walk Sasuke hoped he could obtain.

"Get on the bed. I'll have a look in a moment." He went over to his desk and frowned, moving pens and papers until they were lined up to where he wanted them. He placed the file on a metal folder divider that held four other files.

"Kabuto-kun, did you mess with my desk?" Yakushi looked startled before looking resigned.

"I was looking for the paper on the Tsutsui case. I'm sorry about the mess." Yakushi bowed to Doctor Matsuoka but Doctor Matsuoka didn't even look at him.

"How many weeks have you been working for me?" Yakushi lost his smile and started to open his mouth but before he could answer Doctor Matsuoka continued on, "You've been here long enough to know where all the pens and papers go on my desk. You've also been long enough at the hospital to know where papers on cases go. Leave."

Yakushi muttered a weak "Sorry." before walking over to the table where Doctor Matsuoka held up a file and left the room with it.

"I'm sorry you had to see that. He's useful to have around as an assistant, never doing anything extreme but also not particularly outstanding. He's good but I don't know if he's medinin quality, he'll be a good doctor though. He just lacks experience."

"I'm sure he's not going to be that-" protested Sakura but Doctor Matsuoka merely waved her concerns away before he focused on Sasuke.

"Name, age, rank and what hand is the injury on." Doctor Matsuoka's eyes stared deeply into his, it was disconcerting but Sasuke wasn't going to show weakness. Sasuke heard a pen click 5 times, it almost could caused him to blink.

 "Sasuke Uchiha, twelve, genin, left hand." Doctor Matsuoka gave him a tight smile that looked more like a grimace before reaching for his hand with the end of a pen to lift it up. Sasuke allowed since it really was painful by this point and clenching his fists so much probably didn't help matters.

Doctor Matsuoka poked his hand a bit with the pen while Sasuke held his hand up trying not to grimace whenever the pen poked a rather painful part. He stared at Sasuke's face as he did so. Whatever he saw in him made Doctor Matsuoka stop poking his hand.

"Keep your hand straight towards me. I'm going to check the extent of the injuries through chakra." Sasuke did so and when the chakra reached his hand from the pen he struggled not to gasp. The chakra was rather cold and nice feeling against the heat of his hand but very isolated.

It wasn't anything that Sasuke had seen before. Doctor Matsuoka worked in total silence and was practically still as a log as he worked on Sasuke, Sakura hovering in the background.

"Tai fractures, dislocated knuckle as well. I'll heal what I can so it isn't a couple of weeks without your dominant hand but you'll still need to take time off and not use your hand for a few days." If he had known punching Naruto would have had resulted in him not training for a few days he would have had never punched the idiot.

"Er, Matsuoka-sensei, what's tai fractures?" asked Sakura hesitantly, obviously seeing that Doctor Matsuoka didn't care for idiots.

"It means he punched wrong and is now paying for it." Sasuke resisted the urge to growl at the guy and shout; only dogs, kids and the Inuzuka clan do that. Sakura made a soft "oh" sound before becoming quite again.

Doctor Matsuoka concentrated on his hand for a bit, going through hand signs, over and over,  and placing his chakra into his hand, his hand hovering over his own. Sasuke tried not to scream as he felt the bones in his hand shift and move back into their proper place. It wasn't like your hand just suddenly shifting to make room; it was your chakra coils shifting the bone to where it was meant to go.

The act of your own chakra coils moving from where they're meant to be to move other things was extremely painful. Chakra coils weren't meant to move like that or be manipulated like that either but they were and they did.

Sasuke was pretty sure that he was panting. He wasn't quite sure. He was also sure that Doctor Matsuoka had said something as well. Everything was moving rhythmatically and there was a cold feeling against his forehead that felt great.

The cold bliss was everything he ever wanted and needed in his life. It felt like hollowness.

Someone had their hand around his arm, urging him to get up, to leave. They wanted him to leave the coldness.

 Too soon he came to his senses. He realised he wasn't cold any longer.

Sakura had a hand around his arm to stabilise his arm while Doctor Matsuoka was wrapping his hand in gauze to make sure that Sasuke didn't use his left hand. He was careful not to touch him.

The doctor had a very steady hand as he wrapped the cotton around using his chakra, not too tight but not too loose. It was an experienced hand. The edges of the cotton met each other just perfectly where they overlapped. It was slow work being that meticulous. Sasuke continued to watch the man wrap his arm in content silence until he was done and had attached the butterfly clip to the end of the cloth using the barest amount of touching possible.

"I have a prescription for you, to help with the hand to help it heal faster. Take the pills three times a day with meals until they're done. Make sure you take it with water. Don't take it if you're taking other medicine. Don't overdose. Come back a week after you're fine for a check up, tell Kakashi-sensei to come with you. If you see Kabuto-kun when you leave make sure you tell him to report back to me." Sasuke nodded mentally making sure to cut the dose of sleeping medicine that he was taking in out of his life temporarily in order to take the prescription. Doctor Matsuoka went back to his desk and grabbed a piece of paper that he wrote on, his pen clicking again.

Sasuke got out of the bed and took the prescription that Doctor Matsuoka had held up in his hand. The characters were neat and precise. Doctor Matsuoka paid them no attention afterwards as he grabbed the file he came in with.

Sasuke nodded to Doctor Matsuoka, "Thanks," before leaving. Looking at the prescription he saw something called Blood-Chakra pills and Bone-Shina pills, both of which he didn't recognise.

"Thank you, Matsuoka-sensei," whispered Sakura, her voice polite as ever to authority figures, as she trailed after him leaving Doctor Matsuoka to himself.

They met Kakashi and Naruto outside the door. Naruto was looking much better, and not like he had been punched with six years of internal rage that had gathered. The fact that he was now smiling  with his annoying grin said so.

"Well since we can't do training today due to the injuries I guess I'll have to call the training off. Such a shame, here I was hoping to  train you guys something special. Looks like personal training for everyone, well apart from Sasuke-kun. I guess I'll have to get someone to look after you." Sakura shot up straight and tall staring at Kakashi like he had said he had a gold mine, Sasuke stared at Kakashi as if to say anyone but her. He wasn't too sure Kakashi got the message from the one eyed smile that he gave.

"Mah, mah, since it was technically Naruto-kun's fault that Sasuke-kun and Naruto-kun were hurt I guess Naruto-kun will have to do it, don't forget to get the prescriptions," Kakashi gave another cheery one eyed smile, "Now I need to get to the mission office. I need to give a mission to tell them that I have had the food of Ukanomitama-sama and now need to fulfil my destiny by looking for my one true love in a desperate fit of passion worthy of a novel."

"Liar!" shouted Sakura and Naruto while Sasuke stated it.

"There's no way that Ukanomitama-sama does that, datte-!" Naruto made an ugly wheezing sound like he was almost dying causing Sakura to move two steps away from him in an exaggerated motion, "Everyone knows that they're the Kitchen God not some love god!" Sakura stared at Naruto before hit Naruto upside the head and started to yell at him, apparently okay with catching whatever terrible sounds he was making. Sasuke liked Naruto better when he was quiet. Much better. How was he going to survive with Naruto helping him for the next few days?

Sasuke tried not to be too miserable for the next few days coming. It wasn't working.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next quick fun fact about the Narutoverse, on no canon map of Naruto is there Wave Country. Wave Country isn't on any canon maps and that really screws me up. Also Fire Country is like the size of Spain apparently since it takes like a week to travel have the half of Fire Country.


	3. Call to home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginnings of friendship, or as I like to call it "dumb boys doing dumb shit" and stuff like that and maybe a bit of plot. Warnings of: trauma, nongraphic death of a OC, Orochimaru

Sasuke hated anyone coming near the place he slept. He hated anyone going near his family compound. Coincidentally Naruto was going to do both thanks to Kakashi's orders. He was going to step onto the Uchiha compound where Sasuke's relatives lived and stomp all over where they died and enter the house where he had made his base in.

Naruto who was going to touch everything because Naruto had no tact and no sensibility and way too curiosity not to touch everything. It would drive Sasuke crazy. In fact just thinking about already drove Sasuke crazy.

Nobody had really been to the Uchiha compound in such a long time and Sasuke didn't really spend that much time around the compound apart from cleaning the house as much as he needed and going to the family shrine in the old compound every Autumn. It didn't seem right to go around cleaning everything when he half expected Uncle Teyaki to be telling him off for trying to find the secret of his senbei recipe in his house or Uncle Setsuna showing off baby Ren, his grin a tad wide but nevertheless proud.

He didn't like returning to his cousin's place at the end of the day unless he was tired from training. It didn't seem right now due to having no training but not only was he not able to return to Shisui's place without being closer to his goal but he had to bring someone else home with him.

 _It wasn't right_.

The only person he should be bringing to the family compound would be a wife after he took his vengeance against _that_ Man but no, instead he gets Naruto to take care of him because Kakashi was a terrible person who couldn't leave things be.

He did try to lose Naruto and his stupid labouring wheezing in the market place hoping that his clothing would hide him and it seemed to work for about five minutes before Naruto found him again sounding like he was about to pass out but holding a pair lightly bruised pears with a stupid grin on his face. Sasuke stared at the pears and Naruto for a good few seconds before chalking it up to Naruto and his criminal past and really didn't want to know anything more than that.

"What are you looking at bastard, dattebayo!?" shouted Naruto before he winced, and really when wasn't he shouting? Didn't his face hurt from saying so much? God he was annoying.

Sasuke scoffed, if his mother was around she's give him a chilly glare behind a smile like she did to his father, and sneered "Did you steal those or did someone just drop it on the ground?" Naruto growled and held up a pear as if he was about to throw it.

"Bastard! If these pears weren't in such good condition then I'd throw them at you, dattebayo! And for your information I got given them by a kind stall keeper!" He didn't actually care if Naruto got the pears for free or not but he just wanted Naruto to go away.

"By the way, where is your place? I don't think I've ever seen you go home, dattebayo," said Naruto offering one of the pears to Sasuke. Sasuke paused before reluctantly taking the pear. Free food was food that he didn't need to make later.  Naruto took a bite out of his own and wincing as he realised that with the broken cheek that he probably couldn't do that.

Sasuke could feel his anger rising again, "Idiot, why did you think you could eat solid food with a broken cheek! Broken cheeks are serious injuries!" Why couldn't the idiot just think for the first time in his life? Why?

"Shut up! The doctor said that I could eat soft foods in about a week anyway so I don't see the difference in eating it now or later!" Naruto glared at the pear as if it was its fault that Naruto couldn't eat it. Sasuke took a bite out of his own, partly to tease Naruto that he couldn't eat his and partly because he was curious of how hard the fruit actually was.

It wasn't hard at all and actually quite soft and sweet. Sasuke internally winced at it, he wasn't exactly used to overly sweet foods apart from the twice a year time that all the girls in class collectively decides to give him presents, one being his birthday and the other being a holiday that came from capital to do with giving boys sweets to show affection. He much prefer tomatoes instead of pears but they weren't even sweet yet even if they were in season.

"Of course there is a difference in eating soft foods now or later! Didn't anyone teach you that you should listen to the doctor?" Sasuke barely noticed the road that they were walking as they were shouting at each other. There was something calming about shouting at Naruto, probably because everyone has shouted at Naruto at some point.

"Of course not! I've never needed to the doctor's for this type of thing before today!"

Sasuke stared in disbelief. That had to be wrong. Nobody has never gone to the doctors. People get sick and injured and there was no way Naruto has never been injured. "Wait! Never?! You never got a virus that was around the village or broke your arm? I remember you hurting your wrist like two years ago!"

Naruto frowned and looked vaguely constipated, "Huh? Doctors cost money! I don't any spare money to go to the doctors,"

Sasuke stared at Naruto for a moment trying to see if Naruto was purposely being stupid because there was no way that a person could be _this_ stupid before deciding that, no Naruto was just this stupid, "The doctors are free for ninja and students. They're part of the village taxes," Naruto looked dumbfounded.

"The village pays taxes?" he asked dumbly in Sasuke's opinion.

"Yes! We got taught that last year! This is why on each mission we only get a small proportion of money from the mission, part of it goes towards the village. But I remember you had a bandage around your wrist two years ago and you were complaining about how much it hurt and itched," Sasuke was never so grateful that he paid attention to classes even if they were boring and about civilian life.

"Well yeah, it did itch but I put those bandages on myself. They were the same kind as the bandages under our pouches,"

There had to be a limit to how stupid Naruto was. There _had_ to be.

"Those...those aren't medical bandages,"

Naruto shrugged, his stupid orange jumpsuit puffing up as he did so, "Bandages are bandages,"

"They're really not! How did you never go to the doctors in your life? Did you even get injections for rabies or the yearly flu?"

Naruto said "Well, yeah, I've had the injections, everyone's had injections," in such a blank tone of voice that Sasuke was going to kill Naruto. He really was. How did Naruto make everything he say so aggravating.

Sasuke grimaced as he realised that the juice from his pear was leaking onto his hand and he had no way of cleaning it up.

At some point Naruto must have noticed what he was staring at because he said, "Just lick it you prissy asshole," before turning back to looking around, probably trying to find what else he could steal.

Sasuke stared at Naruto for a second before going back to the slow moving trickle of juice.

Sasuke frowned at the juice, it was starting to get sticky and uncomfortable and just gross in general, "I'm not a Inuzuka, I'm not just going to lick fruit juice off of my hands,"

"You don't need to be a Inuzuka to lick things off of your hands, dattebayo!" shouted Naruto or at least Sasuke thought he was trying to, it looked a bit hard when you kept wincing every few seconds and generally sounded like something dying in the streets.

Sasuke looked at his hand and Naruto and smirked. He had a brilliant idea. It wasn't worthy of an Uchiha but it would make himself feel better about everything. Hoping Naruto wouldn't notice Sasuke switched hands that were holding the pear so he had the stalk in the other hand and came closer to Naruto.

"Oi! What do you want, bastard?" Naruto was squinting suspiciously at Sasuke as he slid closer. His hand hovering over the idiot's back. Why couldn't the idiot stay oblivious at the right moments was the real question.

"Nothing, just showing my appreciation of you," Sasuke quickly wiped his juice stained hand on the back of Naruto's jacket, "idiot," and walked ahead just a tad. He smirked at the pure fury and confusion that he heard behind him.

"URk! You put pear juice on my jacket, dattebayo! Oi! Asshole! I'm talking to you, dattebayo! Hey! Don't walk away! That's it, dattebayo!" shouted Naruto from behind him. It should have made him turn around but it didn't.

* * *

 

"Did you really have to squish the pear into my hair?" asked Sasuke, tired and need of a desperate shower, as he opened the door to his second cousin's place. He could feel the mashed up pear sticking hair together in odd ways.

"Shut up. Did you have to throw your pear at my face? Besides you started it, dattebayo," wheezed Naruto, his jacket tied around his waist and he almost sounded like he was about to  go into a panic attack. If he did Sasuke was going to shut the door on him and lock him out. He was not going to take care of Naruto in a panic attack.

Sasuke got into Shisui's house to take his shoes off and Naruto did the same.

Naruto looked around for a bit staring at the figurines that his mother collected and the various family photos that littered the place. Some of the photos weren't of his family but of his uncle instead at different stages of his life.

Sasuke knows if he looked in the draws he'll find photos of Shisui and his father in there. Uncle Inshi was superstitious like that. However Sasuke wasn't like Uncle Inshi, he kept the pictures of his family as a reminder of what he had to do and if he happened to cut out _that_ Man  out of the pictures, well it was best not to be reminded that he was related.  

"Hey Sasuke-kun do you mind if I use your washing machine to wash my clothes?" Sasuke hummed in reply, trusting Naruto to get what he was saying.

"Very end corridor on the right, I'm taking a shower," said Sasuke as he headed upstairs. Sasuke didn't use many rooms in the house. It didn't feel right to him like he was always intruding on something so it was probably best that he brought Naruto here since they'd be intruding on the house together rather than somewhere else like his childhood home.

"Thanks!"

Sasuke didn't bother replying, he was sure Naruto got the message.

He was in a desperate need for a shower and he swore he could hear flies coming towards the smeared fruit on his head as well. Naruto could probably work a washing machine; he was an orphan as well. He took his shower until his hair no longer smelt of ripe pear. Changing and heading back to his room he threw his dirty clothes into his laundry basket and looked at his small table.

His small table had only one chair and was littered with books and scrolls. Some of them he already read, others were ones that he was still learning and one was something that he still needed to translate properly. He got the scroll he needed to translate and as many of dictionaries as he could balance with one hand and his chest. Looking at the scroll in hand he decided he probably also needed a pencil and paper to go along with it before heading downstairs again.

Translating was hard work.

Setting everything on the kitchen table Sasuke was half surprised that he couldn't hear Naruto. Maybe a bit more than half but that's because Naruto was loud and had the tendency to get louder the longer you spent time with him.

Slightly concerned Sasuke wandered down the corridor before he noticed a door open. Not just any door but his aunt's door. The exact same door that he had hear his uncle complain about being basically indestructible, hard to open and how his own son didn't let him into his late wife's office.

Full blown panic filled Sasuke as he rushed to the door to find Naruto down to his boxers looking at the bookshelf in the door with great concentration.

Sasuke had never been in this room before. It was disconcerting. There was a window in the office. Sasuke had never seen a window on the outside before. There was also a fish bowl that had been covered with algae and a small container exclaiming 'Yabby pellets!', there was also half finished reports and books on the table as well.

This was the room where Shisui had his last days in.

This was the room where he could find out why his second cousin committed suicide.

"Ah! Sasuke-kun, sorry I didn't meant to wander about all the rooms down here but I saw the seal and I thought to myself I might as well try it out since Inoichi-san taught me and all. You're not mad about me entering this room are you?"

Sasuke wasn't even looking at Naruto anymore by this point. Instead he was slowly entering the room, step by step, treating it like the museum of the dead that it was.

"Sasuke-kun?"

There was faded photos on the right corner by the window.

The first photo was of his aunt, uncle and baby Shisui. His cousin was tiny when he was a baby and didn't even open his eyes for the photo. His uncle was a standard Uchiha stock of lithe build with black hair and eyes. However his aunt he kept forgetting what she looked like.

That she had black hair clips or the fact she looked ridiculously young compared to his uncle. It just kept fading from his memory and startles him every time he looks at the photo.

Her long red bangs hanging at the front with a short bob at the back and dark greyish black eyes stared at him from the family photo. Shisui's eyes.

The next photo was of the genin team she had. One of the boys he thinks might have been Uncle Setsuna and the girl in the picture he recognised as Aunt Mao, Uncle Setsuna's wife. The other male he doesn't know.

The last photo was newer than the rest. Simply because it was more clearer than the rest.  
It was of Shisui and _that_ Man together side by side, both smiling in front of the lake where Sasuke learnt how to do the great fireball technique. Sasuke placed it face down. He didn't need more reminders that he has to do.

"Sasuke-kun, are you okay?"

Naruto touched his arm shocking him for a brief second before he was like normal.

"Of course, I'm fine." Naruto looked unconvinced. It was like all those people that asked him if he was okay after the massacre all over again, "I've just never been in this room before,"

"Huh, was this like your father's office or something?" Sasuke gave him a disbelieving look. How did anyone miss the fact that this was clearly not his family home?

"This is my Aunt Nanami's office. She used seals to seal away this office and later my second cousin did the same thing,"

Naruto tilted his head, he probably confused him, "and you couldn't enter this place at all? Isn't this your place?"

"Don't be an idiot. If I could enter the place it wouldn't smell like mildew and have algae in the pond, besides I'm only using this place. It's not actually mine. It's my uncle's place."

"But I thought all your family was dead?" frowned Naruto as he scratched his head.

"They are."

Naruto froze before looking around and slowly wilting under his stare.

What an idiot.

"Right...right! I need to make you the best meal ever dattebayo!" shouted Naruto as he headed out the room. Sasuke looked around once more, taking it all in. When Naruto's gone he'll explore the place more.

Later.

"At least put clothes on! Or put something on! I'm _not_ having you wander about the house half naked!" shouted Sasuke as he turned to leave the room.

"I don't have spare clothes!" shouted Naruto back followed by the sound of metal on metal and bowls being moved.

Sasuke looked towards the ceiling wondering if it was too late to kick Naruto out. Probably was. Turning to close the door Sasuke remembered to place grab a book from the bookshelf and wedge it between the door and door frame, just in case. He didn't want to be locked out again.

Sighing Sasuke went back up stairs. He probably had some old clothes in Naruto's size, grabbing an old pair of shorts and top he went back into the kitchen to throw it at Naruto's head. He ignored the noise that Naruto let out as it hit the back of his head.

Luckily for him Naruto quickly put it on, only complaining a bit but he thinks it was more due to the whole throwing thing than being ungrateful.

"Sasuke-kun! You don't have any noodles!" Naruto broke into a coughing fit part way through, "How am I meant to make ramen if I don't have the noodles for it, dattebayo?!"

Sasuke glared at Naruto lightly, "You don't make ramen. Did that ever occur to you?"

"DOn't say such things!" shouted Naruto, apparently offended by the mention of not having ramen for every meal. How was Naruto still healthy if all he ate was ramen?

"Just make something else without noodles,"

"Fine! I will! And it will be the best damn thing you ever had or I'm not Uzumaki Naruto, dattebayo!"

Sasuke sighed and hoped for the best.

* * *

 

He ran.

He didn't think about his good luck.

He had to- he had to run; get away.

His village needed him. He had to get away from here.

The corridors were narrow, probably just enough for two people to get through. He hoped that there wasn't another person to come by.

He didn't know how long he had been captured for but his little sister was waiting for him. Everyone was waiting.

Sweat rained down from his forehead. It was hot, much too hot. He couldn't get enough air. The corridor was faintly swayed side to side as he ran down. He didn't know exactly where he was going but he was going to get out of here but everywhere looked the same.

He wanted to stop but if he did was he going to be stopped forever?

Would he go back to the cells? Like everyone else in those filth cages? Where they were experimented on?

No. He was going to get outside. He _was_ going outside. He was going to back to his village and get everyone out that he could. He was going away from Rice Country.

Up ahead there was a shadowed figure. He slowed down slightly. There wasn't any off shoots in the corridor.

"I wouldn't go back if I was you. There are two snakes following you ready to bite if they catch up to you. You don't have any way to go, if you come peacefully you'll survive but if you don't then I'll be forced to kill you," he knew that voice. He knew that voice. He remembered that it was the white one, the one that usually came with the Snake and the doctor.

"You! You helped _him_ take everything from me!" he growled. They were the ones that took everything from him. If only he could-!

The white one pointed a finger at him and something odd happened. There was a quick burst of pain in his forehead, and he was dead.

* * *

 

Kimimaro looked down at the body that lay on the ground and sighed. He felt pity for the man he died not knowing that everyone from his village was dead or rather the experiments done on the body made him forget that he had been already dead.

That the soul of the man placed inside the body didn't remember that his village was already gone and dead by Orochimaru's hand during the Second Ninja War. He'd have to report to Lord Orochimaru that this experiment was a failure but he did say some interesting things.

He seemed to remember him even if they didn't meet during that era. So maybe it was a bit of a success after all.

He left the body in the corridor for Lord Orochimaru's snakes to eat if they so choose and headed off to see Lord Orochimaru to report and see if there was anything he could do for him with the remainder of his life.

The corridors interlinked with each other to make a confusing maze to anyone that didn't know the pathways. Lord Orochimaru preferred to have her quarters in the North despite how she complained about how cold it was. She always had her quarters in the North in all the years that he knew her.

Knocking politely on Lord Orochimaru's door he waited for permission to come in, which thankfully came almost immediately in the form of the door opening by itself. Before it fully opened Kimimaro saw that there was a chakra string attached to the door.

"Impressive as always, Orochimaru-sama," complimented Kimimaro.

There was a soft huff of sound that came from behind a thin paper frame that illuminated Lord Orochimaru's  thin frame. A noticeably feminine frame. It was a little distracting especially since she had put on weight, weight that made Lord Orochimaru's figure change in a odd way, that was refusing to go away, at least for the time being.

Trying to avoid looking Lord Orochimaru was hard since there wasn't much of interest to see in the room. It held everything needed for Lord Orochimaru to get dressed with such as different types of make-up and a wardrobe. However it was impersonal. Nothing to say that she had been here apart from concealers and kimonos, like someone else could be living there.

"A chakra string used for mundane actions isn't impressive or rather it's not impressive once a person knows that chakra strings is taught to genin in Suna." Lord Orochimaru's voice was a higher pitch as well, a sweeter tone than what people would expect from her. It had been this way for almost a year and a half. A record by Kimimaro's standard.

"It's still impressive to see it in action."

"It really isn't; what it is a waste of energy to amuse people. To make myself seem more impressive than I really am. What is impressive is controlling more than three puppets at a time. I only know of two people who could do that and one of them is dead. A pity she had to marry the Kazekage but such is life."

Kimimaro paused for a moment, there was a delicate smell in the air; a perfume. He scowled fiercely. There was only one reason why Lord Orochimaru would wear such _that_ perfume scent.

"You visited the daimyō again." accused Kimimaro, there was no question involved. That perfume was a gift from that man and Kimimaro desperately wished that he could kill him. Maybe Lord Orochimaru could grant him his dying wish?

There was another huff of air, "Don't get yourself worked up over my non-existent virtue. Konoha took care of that ages ago when they made me part of Seduction Corps," and Lord Orochimaru finally came out from behind her frame, her hair loose behind her back, the inner kimono loosely tied around her and her features slightly masculine as Lord Orochimaru's real chakra was leaking into the body causing it to die faster.

"You shouldn't have to," argued Kimimaro, luckily he was favoured by Lord Orochimaru. Very few were but they almost all seemed to be youth that he had known for a while. The young that he had saved and watched grown up particularly those with interesting abilities.

Looking at Lord Orochimaru many would think that she would be beautiful, in a noble woman type of way, but he only noticed that she looked bored. She probably was, after all Lord Orochimaru's only weaknesses was her hubris and boredom. He knew this much from his years with her. It was like a curse for her.

"This is why you're a good person at heart, Kimimaro-kun. However, this makes you too easy to be manipulated by others, especially those with no morals or care such as the daimyō or myself. Perhaps this was the person that you were always meant to be, besides isn't it better to discover everything in life than to live ignorant of everything?" mused Lord Orochimaru as she made her way to her desk where several scrolls and loose papers lay.

"I'd rather not discover what's so good about the daimyō of Rice Country or his private rooms," muttered Kimimaro. He was being petulant but that man was a pain to be near and a even larger pain to deal with.  

"How else will we be able to spread our stock around if it weren't for the charity and missions from our esteemed daimyō?"

There was a immediate answer that came to mind but it wasn't one that Kimimaro was in a position to say. Perhaps Kabuto would be able to say it in some sort of clever, coded way that made Lord Orochimaru amused by.

Instead he said nothing. Like every other time he has brought this up. He was a coward and a dead man walking, there really wasn't much hope for him.

Instead he changed the subject, "The experiment is dead."

"What a pity. What direction did he go?"

"West-North-West, trying to get back to his village,"

"Well, either it was luck or he knew where he was going. Too bad we won't know until the next round of testing."

"He said that he remembered me. Called me the 'white one',"

Lord Orochimaru made a humming sound as she looked over to Kimimaro, a small grin forming and a glint of manic in her eye, "Now that _is_ interesting since I don't recall Jiraiya being at the village that we destroyed in the Second War. Either the experiment is forming new memories even after multiple deaths or he's remembering the experimentation even after a mind wipe and we won't know until later. _Very good_ , Kimimaro-kun,"

Kimimaro let the praise wash over him for a few seconds before bowing and leaving the room.

"Oh and Kimimaro-kun?" He turned around just before he exited the door, ready and attentive to his master's orders, "Tell Tatsuya-chan to enjoy her puppy love while she can and to remember that falling in love only brings tragedy,"

Kimimaro bowed again before making a mental reminder to let Tatsuya to remember that she should watch herself. He'd do anything for Lord Orochimaru after all even if Lord Orochimaru didn't know what it meant and smiled to himself. It was almost time to make Lord Orochimaru's goals a reality.

They had a war to prepare for after all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently a person could live off of D ranked missions and it's stated that Naruto, himself, was about to live off of D ranked missions in his early years. Which raises the question how much are people getting charged for a single D rank mission that might go about 5 ways (4 to the people doing the mission and 1 part to the village). Reddit has a very nice commentary of economics of the narutoverse, which raises how fucking rich are people in narutoverse to just have that much money lying around?!!!!  
> https://www.reddit.com/r/Naruto/comments/19x2i5/basic_economics_in_the_narutoverse/


	4. White Wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for a Kakashi chapter, bound to happen sooner or later!
> 
> Updated: 7/03/18 due to someone pointed out my honourifics were wrong so I changed it and maybe added in a sentence.

Kakashi cheerfully walked up the side of the Hokage Tower, he even skipped a few times and kept spiking his chakra in certain patterns known to ANBU which roughly translated to 'I'm not harmful', 'I'm okay' and 'false alarm' with a bit of random dot-dash code mixed in, it was good to keep the young kids on their toes. Kakashi fully ignored that some of those 'kids' were not much younger than he is.

The spikes that he got in return made him grin, it roughly translated to 'Stop' with informal ANBU spiking that translated to 'You ass'. Yeah, it was a good day to walk up the Hokage Tower, he really should do it more often.

Looking through the Hokage's window he tried to spot whether or not the Third Hokage had any visitors, it was a bit hard since the Hokage's window was actually made out of a one way mirror. He didn't think he saw anything so he knocked and waited for someone to actually open the window, he had to wait a bit so he just spike his chakra in creative ways and made new patterns to see if the ANBU would respond to it. It was a pity that they didn't this time but he could feel that they wanted to, they were just trying to ignore him. Maybe he should drop in ANBU and mess with them? Pity he would get a black mark if he did.

Finally the window opened, a wisp of smoke floating out smelling of tobacco and elderberry.

"Kakashi-kun, how wonderful it is to see you without an appointment or a summon." Kakashi fully ignored the sarcasm that the Third gave and climbed inside.

"I never pegged you for elderberry before." The Hokage chuckled and took a deep breath from his pipe.

"It's a gift, from the Tsuchikage. Most generous considering that only half of the tobacco was poisoned, the note said happy birthday and that maybe I consider should stepping down at some point," The Hokage gave a wry grin as he took another puff and looked to savour it, "I sent him a gift of Akimichi cured meats that were covered in bitter orange oil and wisteria as thanks with a hint that he should choose a successor soon."

"I didn't know that it was your birthday recently." In fact Kakashi was pretty sure that his birthday was in a few months in fact.

"Oh it was a fake birthday that I made up when I had to infiltrate Iwa back in my youth where I met the Tsuchikage before he was the Tsuchikage, after that every year the Tsuchikage makes a point of sending a gift."

"I bet your wife was pleased to know that you were being courted by such a powerful man."

"Biwako always laughed at the gifts, the Tsuchikage even gave her a black kimono and a dagger for our wedding present with a note telling her to use them both." Kakashi let a few laughs loose at the tale.

"Did she ever use the dagger?"

The Hokage grinned, a faraway look in his eyes as he remembered the old days. It always made Kakashi feel distinctly unsettled when the Third looked like that, "Only when she was angry at me."

Biwako was the type of woman that was both regal and deadly with her tongue, and very intelligent. She also rarely got angry at anything but always looked displeased with the world and merely decided to settle in it as if her presence alone made the world a better place. Even kept up her studies of medicine even after she 'retired'; a true medinin at heart.

"So I don't think you came to me just to hear stories of the past," a breath in, smoke comes out, "so what was so urgent that you decided that you couldn't wait to make an appointment with my secretary?"

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head, the faint feeling of killing intent from the Hokage was sending the place on his head tingling, "Well a couple of things, I need to get your approval for two missions that I want to set up," The Hokage raised an eyebrow as if to tell him to go on, "I need approval for a mock infiltration mission for Naruto-kun. It was proposed by Inoichi Yamanaka-san and supported by Ibiki Morino-san. We will need a week to train him in infiltration and let him have a day of preparation before letting him go into a solo mock mission within the village to send a message to another ninja with a surveillance watching him."

The Hokage hummed before taking another puff. Kakashi really did hope that the Hokage would let him do the mock mission without parameters, he had the perfect target and place in mind.

"Mission granted, Inoichi-san will  help  train Naruto-kun as he was the one to suggest the mission and the overseer will be Shibi Aburame-san who will watch from afar." Kakashi nodded his consent, getting Shibi to agree to his plans might be a little hard but Kakashi also had a bit of emotional blackmail on the guy so it could go either way.

"The other is a private D ranked mission."

"D ranked mission? I hope you're not sending a team of genin to wash your dogs or dogs that your dogs have had made friends with."

Kakashi placed both hands over his heart and fluttered his one good eye, "I would never do that!" the Hokage snorted and chuckled, shaking his head while he did so.

"So what is the mission?" It was really better to be honest and straightforward at this point but it could turn out so badly if he was honest. Which one? Which one?

"I want a genin team, other than my own, to find Sasuke-kun a future wife."

The Hokage slowly put his pipe down on the table and leaned back into his chair, "You're going to need to explain this further." that was practically a go ahead to sell his idea, or rather Naruto's idea, to the Hokage but how to do so without saying that he thought that it would be funny or that Naruto suggested it.

"Sasuke-kun is the last Uchiha of Konoha, and he's obsessed with trying to kill his brother or at least getting up to a point where he could kill his brother by himself. I know I'm not the best to say this but if he keeps going the way he is we're going to lose the last Uchiha, either because we don't have enough to teach him or because he's going to kill himself trying. If we keep him in Konoha long enough that we can get him married to someone then we could keep the Uchiha clan in Konoha."

"What about Itachi-san? How do we know that he hasn't had children yet?" Kakashi gave the Hokage a look that must have had said volumes about what he thought about that.

"I gave Itachi-san the talk when he first joined ANBU. I don't think he's having children at any point." The Hokage winced but conceded that it was unlikely that Itachi had children that nobody knew about. After all he was thirteen and in ANBU when he left so it was unlikely he had children before he left and afterwards, and well the Uchiha clan was notoriously asexual for a major clan. It would be considered a minor miracle that Fugaku and Mikoto had two children in the first place if it weren't for the Uchiha tradition of two sons for the head of the clan.

"So why start now? Why start when he's just a genin instead of at sixteen when he can get married?"

"It gives us time to find a good match for him, if we start now we can watch those in contact with him around his age group to find a potential wife for him and set them up when they're older."

"Do you know how hard it is to set up marriages? I've been trying to get Kurenai Yūhi-chan in my family for years now, does my son ever get the hint? No, instead he dances around her like a damn moth to the light and runs off for a few years to the Daimyo's court to play bodyguard without telling anyone."

"I could probably help with that if you agree to my mission." The Hokage gave him a look that roughly said 'good try' or at least in polite terms it said that.

"If I let you help then she'll probably end up marrying you over Asuma-kun." Kakashi gave a chuckle at that, he didn't know Yūhi and he wasn't sure he wanted to in any sense. He had enough troubles keeping up his friendships over need to worry about a romantic prospect.

"Maybe, maybe not, but it will be a good mission regardless to have on the roster if only to teach a  genin team surveillance, information gathering and long term missions. You could give it to multiple genin teams to teach them this as a way of training without stepping out of the comfort of Konoha so it'll be a low risk mission."

"And if the genin team gets caught by Sasuke-kun?"

"Well, they better know how to lie well." The Hokage chuckled before slowly nodding. Kakashi was so close he could taste the success of annoying Sasuke to get cheap laughs.

"It'll be long term ranked c mission." Kakashi tried not to pull a face at that, a long term ranked c was going to make him pay more than he wanted to especially since it had a payment system where if it was open ended you had to pay by the month or in Kakashi's case since it was until Sasuke was sixteen so he had to pay up immediately. Kakashi winced as he figured out the amount of money he was going to need to pay straight up, he was lucky he didn't use most of his money he made in ANBU.

"Iruka-kun!" shouted the Hokage, loud enough that he could be heard through the door. Soon enough there was a knock on the door and a brown haired male with a horizontal scar across his nose and tanned skin poked his head through the gap, just this side of out of breath. Honestly the only benefit of being as old as the Hokage is that he can get away with calling almost everyone either '-kun' or '-chan' and nobody can say anything.

"Yes, Hokage-sama?"

"I need the C ranked investigation mission form."

"Oh-? Oh! I mean of course!" said the tanned male before leaving again.

"I believe you met Iruka-kun before? He teaches the children at the academy and does part time at the mission desk."

Kakashi hummed. To get to the Hokage's office from the mission desk would have had meant that the Hokage's secretary, a woman he knew had to be a retired ANBU, had sent a runner down to the mission office to send a message to Iruka and made him run all the way to the Hokage's office. He knew he liked the Hokage's secretary for a reason and not just because she used to be his team leader in ANBU.

"Yeah, I met him, I believe he threatened to castrate me if I didn't turn in my paperwork this time; quite creatively, I believe it involved my favourite Icha Icha Paradise book."

The Hokage chuckled and picked up his pipe again to take a smoke, "I like to think it's all the time spent around the younger ones."

"You should send him on a B rank mission, it'll do him good."

"Not everyone is you, Kakashi-kun." deadpanned the Hokage, his face was like it was set in stone for all the visual cues he was giving out.

"If it was me, I'd be taking the S ranked missions instead."  

The Hokage sighed but the small smile at the corner of his lips gave him away. There was another knock on the door and Iruka entered, holding the forms tight in his hand and glaring at Kakashi as he passed by. Kakashi was almost tempted to try and hit on him to see if he would explode or take Kakashi up on the offer. Personally Kakashi hoped the man exploded to give him a laugh, Iruka was ever so creative in his threats.

"Thank you, Iruka-sensei. You've met Kakashi-sensei before?" said the Hokage giving out the grandfatherly smile that he does when he wants to mess with people. And people say that Kakashi was a bad influence on the youth but had they truly considered where he got it from?

"Yes, I've met him before." said Iruka dryly. See? He was a funny guy.

"Mah, mah, such hostility, you'd think that we were having a fight," Iruka just smiled tightly before leaving, Kakashi made sure to give a overly cheerful wave and a obnoxious "goodbye!" as the other man left.

"Did you really need to do that?" asked the Hokage.

"Did you?" said Kakashi, he would have had raised his eyebrow but he was pretty sure the Hokage knew what he was thinking. The Hokage smiled brightly before chuckling to himself.

"Here, you should read this," said the Hokage holding out the pieces of paper that Iruka had brought in. It was a standard blank form for ranked C missions and where it said whether or not it was long term Kakashi had to circle yes. Very basic and oh so tempting to mess with and make it a incorrect if not for the fact it was actually important and he needed to use proper handwriting. The sake of his amusement rides on that form.

The Hokage had taken the form as soon as Kakashi was finished, Kakashi might have had been offended by this if he hadn't spent the last few years carefully cultivating his reputation as a lazy, jōnin with too much time on his hands and a perchance of sending in mission reports that were barely legible or nearly overdue or both.

He was extra proud of his handwriting, it took him forever to change his normal handwriting into something that while still being correct with all his spelling you could also just barely be able to get what he was writing so the mission desk couldn't find fault with it, apart from Iruka. It was also probably the fact that he slept with a few of the chūnin at the mission desk to even get his forms even past helped.

"Kakashi-kun..." sighed the Hokage, his eyes staring into the forms.

"Yes?"

"Are you sure you want to name the mission this?"

"What's wrong with the name?" the Hokage gave a glare and held up the form to point where the usual mission name was. Usually the mission names were like 'help me garden' or 'border patrol: Konoha-Suna area' or 'Classified: Kill this person' so Kakashi decided to mix it up a bit.

"It says 'Get Sasuke-kun Laid' as the mission name."

"I see nothing wrong with the name." Kakashi was of course lying but he could already imagine Iruka having to call up some unfortunate genin team or chūnin team and say the mission name to them, oh it would be great.

"It's not a proper name."

"It is a proper name; it tells you the purpose of the mission and is more than one word long. It's a proper name."

The Hokage sighed before placing the piece of paper back down and getting his pen out. Rude.

"I'm changing the name into something a bit more formal than 'Get Sasuke-kun Laid'." Kakashi resisted the urge to stick his tongue out, mainly because there was cloth over his mouth but also because he never had the urge to stick his tongue out before so as many things he had the urge to do but never wanted to do before so he ignored the urge.

"The mission name is now 'The Revival of the Uchiha clan', it'll be sent to the mission office tomorrow morning along with all the other mission forms that I have to consent to. Now get out, I have an appointment with Danzō at  three pm and I need to mentally prepare for it." It was only eleven am.

"I'll forever say this, but you need to assassinate him like he tried to do to you."

"Kakashi-kun, that is classified. And what do you think will annoy him more? Me trying to assassinate him or me not retaliating when I retaliate to the Tsuchikage sending me gifts?" The Hokage gave a wrinkled grin that didn't reach his eyes before his eyes flickered, just once, to the ceiling where normally the ANBU would be.

Kakashi sent a faint trail of chakra to the area.

Oh.

Kakashi knew that chakra, how could he not when he met them in ROOT and immediately thought of everyone as a enemy?

No wonder, the sly thing. Kakashi couldn't decide if it was suicidal of the Hokage to purposely let previous  ROOT members in his ceiling where he worked or if it was smart to limit the amount of information Danzō had already. He also had to give kudos to Danzō for having very good brainwashing techniques that ROOT members would still respond to him even after it was dissolved.

"Well as much as I would love to stay and see Danzō- _sama_ again," actually if he saw or spoke to Danzō in the next ten years it would be much too soon, "I have places to see and people to be,"

"Kakashi-kun, I'm pretty sure the saying is 'people to see and places to be'," Kakashi just gave him a one eyed smile, extra bright and got a amused smirk in return along with a slow shake of the head, before he headed back to the window because doors were evil and the most trapped object was always the door.

"I would say stop using my windows as doors but I know that you'd still ignore that. Don't forget to come back later with the money for the missions by the end day otherwise your 'missions' will get lost in my paper work."

"Yes, sir!"  Kakashi even gave a cheery salute that he learned from a mission in the Land of Water before jumping to the nearest rooftop to go to his team.

He was pretty sure he heard the window shut behind him, he was also pretty sure that the Hokage didn't shut the window as well. Ex-ROOT sure were useful, as window operators.

He spiked his chakra in thanks getting another rude flare from the ANBU members. He chuckled lightly before going towards the memorial stone. Well, at least they had personality now. Wait until Obito heard about this.

It took Kakashi half an hour jumping across rooftops and treetops where he could to get to the training ground. It was good to talk things out with Obito, maybe Gai will find him as well and challenge him after a while.

* * *

 

Kakashi cursed as he ran. He didn't mean for it to get this late in between talking with Obito, playing with Gai and needling Anko to pay for food. The latter didn't work but Kakashi still had to try, the things he did for Anko.

Kakashi ran all the way home to get to his emergency stash number three, he named it (and even placed the name on the box too) as such because burglars would be forced to look for numbers one and two before he got home. It hasn't happened yet but he has a feeling that it will one day and when that days happens he'll be ready.

Why in his haste he actually disarmed all of his trap and activated them again too within record time, maybe he could do something similar for his cute little genin group? Threaten Sakura with anmitsu, Naruto with ramen and Sasuke with cherry tomatoes. It would be good incentive for them too. The traps in his place weren't so difficult as well, apart from the first ten initial traps around each opening, door, and window after that they were practically harmless.

Double checking that everything had been set he double checked it again, and again, and again.

It never hurt to be too careful and he also made sure that all the windows and doors were locked as well during these checks.  Kakashi was pretty sure the free ninja psychologists that were offered to him would have a field day, and not only because Kakashi was sure half of them were actually from Danzō. The other half would cry at the sight of him in therapy.

Jumping out his window, after placing the time based seal along the edges that created a barrier, he raced towards the Hokage's Tower. He was late. That was nothing new but this time he actually needed to get the Hokage tower soon. If he wanted his missions sent in by tomorrow he needed his missions send through by tonight, hopefully the Hokage would be working late.

Kakashi uttered a silent curse as he moved towards his goal. He was getting sloppy with his timing. If this was an actual mission...

But it wasn't. Everything was fine, he can salvage this with a quick quip about getting old or a unbelievable story. The Hokage would laugh and will accept his money then Naruto could get training and Kakashi could organise someone else to take Sakura and Sasuke for a week.

It was fine.

Knocking calmly on the Hokage's window he waited a few moments then knocked again. Kakashi flares his chakra long enough that someone could identify him but nobody opens the window. Was there a problem? An attack? Just before Kakashi is ready to break into the Hokage's office he felt the Hokage's chakra flare before fading and laid crouching on the side of the building.

The window slowly opened so that the Hokage's face and the smell of his smoke entered his line of sight.

"Kakashi-kun, you're late."

"You know me, I'm never late." The Hokage chuckled at that and let him in.

Oh. Right.

"Himejima-sama, forgive me, I didn't know I was in the presence of a lady." Kakashi politely bowed to the older woman in the Hokage's office.

Nagi Himejima was a plump and shortish older woman whose hands were soft and smiled widely, not to say that she couldn't murder a person within seconds but she had no reason to. She had married a nobleman from the Capital and had moved there for most of her life but had moved back to Konoha when her husband died leaving behind her son and daughters in the capital.

She also happened to be the Hokage's younger sister.

"Oh please, I haven't been Himejima-sama for a long time, call me Nagi-san at the very least." Her eyes danced with amusement and that was probably the difference of growing up in Konoha compared to the Capital; in Konoha you only needed to smile with your mouth while in the Capital you had to use your mouth and eyes to fool people.

"Of course, Nagi-sama."

Himejima got a fan from her satchel to cover her mouth with, to hide the ways she laughed, and her eyes stared into Kakashi with a warm intensity of a woman who was judging if a man in her presence was really worth her time and effort to even make an effort. That is to say, not very much warmth at all.

"See? I was waiting for Kakashi-kun here," said the Third as he cut the tension with a blunted kunai. Kakashi wanted to send the Hokage a grateful look but he didn't want to show weakness to the woman who survived the Capital's court for thirty years and without her husband getting re-married to another woman or having massive scandals. That alone said volumes.

"Oh, Onii-sama, you could've waited until tomorrow," stated Nagi as she frowned delicately and sent a disapproving look towards her older brother, "Kakashi-kun would still be here in the morning, surely."

The Hokage sighed, a deep heavy and bone wary sigh, that made Kakashi wince. He swore that he could hear the Third's bones shake together.

"I had to wait for the money before I could approve his mission." said the Hokage as he sent a glare towards his sister. Kakashi had always wondered what life would be like if he had another sibling. Considering who his father would have had ended up marrying it was probably better that he didn't have other siblings. Siblings look like hard work that he was just not cut out for.

"And in doing so are currently missing out on family dinner with his son and grandson," scolded Nagi before making a sweeping gesture towards the window where Kakashi was standing. For a second he thought that she was gesturing towards him, "It's already past eight pm, young Konohamaru-kun will need to go to sleep soon. He can't have at this time of night, you really should be more considerate."

"I'll just leave this here and go." Kakashi sneakily, as much as he could with the Hokage and his court trained sister, placed the money that he owed on the Hokage's table. The Hokage sent him an amused look that he had seen just moments before on his sister's face, it made him uncomfortable in a vague way that reminded him that people who were related share more than just blood.

They also happen to share facial features like amused looks that are sent to very undeserving ninja, in Kakashi's personal opinion. Kakashi turned to leave the same way he entered but didn't want to turn his back on Nagi.

Nagi smiled gently at him before turning back to her brother to argue more. The Hokage merely waved him off and Kakashi took that as his cue to leave.

"Oh, Kakashi-kun?" called out Nagi's voice before he jumped out the window, Kakashi tensed a bit but turned around anyway, "Please remember the Hokage office hours next time," Nagi was still smiling gently and her voice just perfectly warm but there was something about the way she clenched her fan that told Kakashi that she was perfectly serious.

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head as the faint killing intent set his instincts wild with the need to destroy whatever was sending that killing intent his way. He was pretty sure that the Hokage _would_ kill him if he accidentally murdered his younger sister.

"Absolutely!" called out Kakashi as he took a backwards swan dive out the window. He was pretty sure he heard the siblings laugh at him but there was no way he was going to stay around a second longer.

Landing on a high branching tree he made sure to avoid all the very terrible branches and bushy leaves as he landed on a suitable branch to head home. His life savings were lighter but his amusement was just beginning.

Now he needed to train up his team for the Chūnin exams.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody can tell me that Kakashi isn't messed up. Nobody.
> 
> New fact about Narutoverse:
> 
> I was going to talk about the technology of Narutoverse but instead I'm going to do my fact on chakra. More particularly Orochimaru's body transfer technique where they seem to be able to keep their previous memories from before the body replacement and the bodies they take over and that's incredible to me. It's incredible because that implies that:
> 
> 1) Chakra contains the soul and mind, where mind refers to consciousness and memory, despite it being a semi spiritual body function caused by Alien genetics (god I hate aliens in Naruto, it gets me so much) over a period of 300 or so years.  
> It's like learning about mitochondria, in how it was a virus that the human body just went "yeah this is mind now, totally didn't copy it from something else" but instead it's bodies in Naruto going "See this new breed of crap? I like it! I'm going to keep it!"
> 
> 2) The Yamanaka clan techniques rely on using their own soul to take over other sentient beings if it is the case of the mind and soul are mixed into one being and probably were the basis of which Orochimaru built his body replacement technique on. Also the Yamanaka clan are messed up in terms of techniques, they have a technique that literally copies their soul/mind into another set of bodies without their own leaving their body and controls it from their body. That's like the equivalent of 2 real time backlash of a shadow clones.
> 
> 3) Orochimaru is just Voldemort. Like plain out Voldemort with his soul being kept in different vassals and without a grudge against kids.
> 
> 4)Hagoromo used chakra replacement technique to give people chakra apart from they didn't have chakra veins back then apart from his brother and mother. Since he and his brother were the first to be born with chakra. So how did people that gained this new chakra hold onto it for so long and not just go back to Hagoromo each time for a new refill?
> 
> 5) Also I hate chakra and everything it stands for after having a 30 minute argument with Jake, Max and Nick about the way chakra works because you can have someone block off your chakra, which effects your health but we don't actually know for sure if chakra has physical veins like blood veins or if they're metaphorical veins that people assume are there and the Hyuga clan can see it so it might be a physical thing but when Sakura pumps Naruto's heart manually we aren't shown the chakra veins.
> 
> There, rant done for now. Possibly do another chakra fact thing later on since chakra gets me so damn much.


	5. Bonding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally have Iruka in this chapter! It's not a Naruto fanfic without some Naruto and Iruka bonding!

Naruto wasn't exactly having the time of his life. Sasuke had set 'rules' for helping him, like feeding times or learning how to cook. Again.

Naruto had to be at Sasuke's place half an hour early to make him breakfast, lunch and dinner to beat Sasuke from making anything himself. Why Sasuke was so determined to make his own food he didn't know but Naruto didn't actually know how to cook. He somewhat was guessing what everything should look or taste like. It basically boiled down to does it taste like ramen if so eat it, if not try again. According to Sasuke that didn't qualify as cooking.

Sasuke's house was very nice. Everything looked well lived in. Naruto would have had loved to rent out a place like it, well maybe minus the new charcoal stains around the place considering Sasuke's wall had a black patch on it now and a dead plant. He was sorry about the plant.

That wasn't fun when he first made stains. Sasuke freaked out and ranted about his uncle's kitchen for a good hour but Naruto got through it. Sasuke still looked at it  when Sasuke wanted to sort through his aunt's office. All Naruto wanted to do was look through everyone just once.

Naruto thought that helping out your teammates like this was meant to be fun, like one of those sleepovers that he heard about where a bunch of people stay at your place and have fun like on TV. He should have had known that having Sasuke around meant that all fun was destroyed.

 Naruto didn't even sleep over at the bastard's place. He just went there a few times a day to do chores and pretend that the bastard wasn't watching his every move. It got to the point where instead of Naruto making food for him they were just eating at Ichiraku's, well at least for lunch and that was pretty great, though for dinner he still had to try to make something that usually had to be turned into breakfast the next day.

Sasuke had claimed that it was "if we're going to be eating ramen every day until I get better because you can't cook for your life, then I want good ramen. You'll be paying for the meal since you're the reason we're in this mess."

Naruto tried to protest but after seeing Sasuke having to take pills along with his meals he couldn't complain. After all his injuries wasn't as bad as Sasuke's injuries, his injuries were practically healed by now and it was only by the faint pain and the yellow bruising on his face that you could tell that he had been punched.

After he went to Sasuke's place for the morning he met with Kakashi in the market place, his teacher was wondering around bookstores while Naruto had been going to see if there was any shops he could get glitter from. Kakashi even looked amused when he asked where he was going and he had also questioned how Sasuke was doing. Naruto vaguely remembered saying that he was being a bastard but it could have had been something else, he was too eager to get to the shops.

He managed to find a place that sold him multicoloured glitter when he had to get groceries for dinner, the shop owner gave him an odd look but it was worth it since he said it was for his little sister, clones were very useful.

 If he did it right then he'll be giving Sasuke a glitter bomb for being a stuck up ass. Maybe he could look in the library and see if he could make a seal version of a glitter bomb. That would be awesome!

Luckily for him it was the last day of having to help him. He could hide the glitter bomb anywhere if he finds the right scroll to teach him how to make a seal glitter bomb or find a storage seal and tweak it a bit, he'd sent a couple shadow clones to the library just to try and find a scroll that could teach him how to do the seal. He hoped they come back with a copy of the scroll soon, it was going to be lunch soon and he wanted to find the perfect place to set the bomb up.

Maybe it was a little underhanded of him to use his access to Sasuke's place like this but the bastard needed a bit of fun in his life and what was more fun than a prank?

Naruto whistled while walking down the street. He was headed to Ichiraku's to pick up lunch, and maybe have a few bowls before going to Sasuke's. There were a few people at Ichiraku's already, it was just before the lunch rush and while Naruto wouldn't usually go to lunch during the lunch rush Sasuke had his rules.  Spotting a familiar head Naruto grinned to himself.

"Iruka-sensei!" It was the only warning he gave the man before he jumped on his back causing the man to choke on his ramen. Turning around Iruka spotted him and choked a reply. Naruto winced a bit before releasing the man, patting his back a few times. He did give his favourite teacher some warning.

"Naruto-kun!" Iruka wheezed, "I didn't know that you were coming today." Naruto grinned in response and sat in the seat beside Iruka.

"I'm just here for lunch," Iruka smiled at Naruto, "Hey old man! I'd like two bowls of Miso with extra pork, one chicken with extra boiled egg and one beef with extra beef! The last two in take away!"

"Naruto! At least get a vegetarian bowl!" scolded Iruka, starting eat his ramen. A ninja a seat over snorted into his ramen, his friend elbowed him laughing slightly. Naruto pouted before relenting.

"Okay, make that a vegetarian bowl as well but with extra boiled egg and Iruka-sensei is paying for it!" Iruka sighed before allowing it.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm paying for it but only that bowl. No more than that." Naruto pouted again but let Iruka's hand ruffle his hair, it's been a while since Iruka had ruffled his hair.

"So what have you been doing?" asked Iruka. It was nice. He hadn't really been asked that before, well Iruka had but that was the day after public holidays and the few three day holidays or week long holidays that the village had. It was like, like a month by now. It really was a long time without Iruka.

"I've been having to look after the bastard-"                                                                              

"Language!"

"-since he hurt his hand."

"First bowl, miso with extra pork!" shouted Teuchi before sliding the first bowl to Naruto. He very promptly broke his chopsticks before getting into the taste of heaven.

"Thanks for the meal!" Iruka liked it when Naruto did small things like saying thanks for the meal or telling him when he was leaving for a mission.  

"Is he alright?"

Naruto made muffled sounds as he tried to talk while eating. Iruka laughed at him lightly before scolding him again. He finished his first bowl before trying to speak again so Iruka didn't scold him.

"Yeah the bas-er, Sasuke-kun is doing just fine. He's just pissy that he can't train. Kakashi-sensei is making me help him out, it's really boring. All he does it watch me do chores to make sure that I'm doing them and making me cook things for dinner. He yelled at me for setting off his smoke alert five times last night." Iruka winced with a pained expression.

Iruka took a deep breath, his face doing that weird smile thing, "It looks like you're having fun then."

Naruto pulled a face before getting into his second bowl of miso that Teuchi silently gave him with a smile.

"Mifts nopp fun." Iruka scolded him again but Naruto could see the smile he was covering up. When Iruka laughs everything seemed better and yeah maybe it was funny that somehow he managed to get the ceiling to catch on fire. It was stupid but pretty funny.

Naruto started to laugh, mainly because Iruka was trying real hard not to smile, which was a really bad decision. He choked on his favourite ramen, which was so not cool. He was hit on the back a couple of times -until he stopped coughing, Iruka was making concerned sounds from where he was sitting next to him. He tried to give Iruka a grin but he had a feeling that his watery eyes made his grin not look so mischievous (Iruka liked to call it that) as he hoped that it would.

"And this is why you don't laugh while eating." Naruto stuck his tongue out, he's had enough of lectures from the academy without Iruka telling him more lectures. Iruka laughed and he hoped that Iruka didn't choke as well, he had the feeling that Iruka would blame him for choking.

"What am I going to do with you?" Iruka sighed but the smile he wore said that he wasn't serious.

Naruto grinned cheekily, "Pay for my ramen?"

Iruka laughed again, "Good try but I'm not paying for anything more than that single one, you'll make me bankrupt if I paid for all of them." Naruto pouted, well Iruka was right about the ramen but he still wanted free ramen.

The final bowl of ramen was the vegetarian ramen, full of green vegetables and thin stringy mushrooms. It looked gross but it was ramen so Naruto still ate it, just a bit slower than the usual ones. Iruka looked proud like those parents at graduation, Naruto felt a blush hot on his cheeks.

It was super embarrassing!

"Stop it!"

"Stop what?" Iruka looked amused, one arm on the bench and the other one propping his head up.

"Stop looking like that!" Naruto tried to look serious but he could feel his lips twitch.

"I can't help looking the way that I look."

"I'm pretty sure that you can, dattebayo!"

The ninja that had laughed before leaned over, "Hey, Umino-san, I knew that you have like thirty kids but I didn't know you decided to actually keep one."  His friend that had ribbed him laughed along. Naruto could feel his blush deepening and could see Iruka starting to blush as well.

"Hey old man! I'll take the take away now, dattebayo!" He struggled to grab his awesome Gama-chan from his jumpsuit to hand over his money.  Teuchi chuckled before handing over a wooden container while Ayame took the money.

"Don't forget to return the container." Naruto nodded seriously to Teuchi before high tailing out of there with the container, unable to keep the grin off of his face as he ran away. He could faintly hear Iruka shouting about telling Sasuke that he said hello.

He had thought about it a few times; Iruka adopting him.

It would practically be a dream come true to have a family that cares about him but it never came up. He didn't mention it and Iruka never said anything then Mizuki happened and Naruto graduated and the opportunity was lost. He never quite knew what would have happened if he had been adopted. Probably would have been nice, maybe a bit more than nice.

The streets past him as he ran towards Sasuke's house, the route to Sasuke's place from Ichiraku's was simple.

Right, straight until the park, then take the left, go straight along past the tea houses with green pillars along the main road towards the nearest gate wall and turn on the forked road around the massive house, go towards the abandoned compound that everyone says has the ghosts of the people that lived there still roaming and take a right, then another right over the hot spring water, left and walk until you see the abandoned creepy Uchiha compound.

Simple.

There had been talk about turning the haunted compound into a new apartment complex but it never came to pass.  Naruto was glad because he had a feeling he would be one of the ones that would have had to live there if it did turn into an apartment complex and he was never good with ghosts, there was something about ghosts that just creeps him out, even just thinking about them creeps him out. Naruto didn't even fight the full body shiver.

Seeing Sasuke's overpriced compound made him want to groan, in relief or agony it didn't matter. How did Sasuke even get to keep the whole compound to himself? The place was massive and obviously meant for a large amount of people. Unfortunately the bastard's place was towards the back but not like back-back but more middle back. It was still creepy to be around because everything was dusty like a horror film, not that Naruto was scared of horror films or anything like that but it was the exact type of place for a horror film to be in especially since from the compound you couldn't hear any life from the main business districts either.

Knocking on Sasuke's door he waited to be let in.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Slowly setting down the container of precious goodness he made sure that it wouldn't tip over or be moved from where it was sitting. He took a deep breath, he was going to need it.

"YOU BASTARD! OPEN THE DOOR ALREADY, DATTEBAYO! IT'S LUNCHTIME!" shouted Naruto. There was a yell from upstairs and also a faint sound from within Sasuke's house. Sasuke opened the door looking just as stuffy as every other day, he had his usual glare and a down turned mouth.

"Do you know how to use an inside voice, at all?" The words idiot echoed around them and only served to get Naruto angrier. Picking up the container of ramen he shoved it into Sasuke's arms and pushed his way into the house to take off his shoes, he shouldn't even be here since the bastard's hand was practically healed, it was only because today was the last day that Sasuke needed to take the pills was the only reason why he was here.

"You should be thanking me!"

"For what? Blackening my walls? Not knowing how to cook anything? Impersonating a member of my clan?" Naruto clicked his tongue and looked around to check what chores he'll need to do while the bastard ate.

"For getting you lunch! And you punched me for impersonating your clan so you don't get to use that excuse, dattebayo!" Sasuke made a 'hmph' sound and his way to his table to eat. Bastard. He heard him shut the door, near silently like every other time he was in the bastard's house, the first time he heard him do that he nearly freaked out thinking that he was going to murder him. Though that could have also been the bastard's face.

"I only need you to clean my up my scrolls and cook dinner tonight." Naruto pulled a face at Sasuke who looked down at Naruto, silently eating his ramen without spilling any of it or making that slurping sound. Even his eating habits had to be perfect!

Grumbling Naruto summoned a shadow clone to get started on the dinner for the night while he headed towards the bastard's room. It was covered in scrolls and books but a lot neater than his own room. He grabbed the scrolls and shoved them on to the shelf roughly. It was stupid to be taking his anger on books but Sasuke could do it himself, he was practically healed! A couple of books fell down from the treatment.

"Watch what you're doing. Those books are worth more than you are." Naruto jumped at the sound, he didn't expect Sasuke to be there but there he was standing in the doorway. He had the whole 'I'm the best and you're worthless but I'll allow you near me' face on. Naruto liked to call it bastard face#2, it was the second most common face that he had other than the normal 'I'm just better' face that Naruto liked to call bastard face number one.

"Have you had your pills yet?" countered Naruto and if there was one thing he knew about Sasuke was that he hated to be told what to do, especially by Naruto and Naruto milked every opportunity he could get to tell Sasuke to do something or not do something. Sasuke clicked his tongue at him and went to go get his pills.

Naruto sighed. At least this would be the last time, any longer and they would have killed each other and the only reason they hadn't killed each other is because Sasuke couldn't physically wrap both his hands over Naruto's neck. He went to place the books back where they belonged, God forbid that his books would be out of order unlike his scrolls.

All the titles of the books were boring like the red one that dropped was all about the marriages in the Uchiha clan according to the title, the open black one was about illusions and it didn't even have any pictures! It was all writing! What kind of book doesn't have pictures?

"Sasuke-kun, you have old man books," Naruto called out as loudly as he could as he came back to the kitchen. Sasuke choke on his ramen as his clone was trying to figure out dinner, "I mean they're all boring! They're all writing and no pictures! Even chakra scrolls have pictures!"

Sasuke growled, "Just clean up the books." before going back to the ramen and eating it like it wasn't the best thing in the world. Not liking ramen just proved that Sasuke was a terrible person. Naruto shook his head while watching Sasuke eat.

The glitter bomb in the marriage book would be the best place to put it. Naruto didn't even believe that Sasuke was going to marry anytime soon so it would be like a delay time bomb! Cheerfully Naruto couldn't wait to get back into Sasuke's room and mess with the book.

"Oi! Idiot-" "I'm not an idiot!""-do you want the other ramen bowl? I can't finish it off." Sasuke got out the beef ramen bowl from the container, the scent sweetly entered the air and serenaded Naruto. He could feel his mouth watering from the scent, it still looked warm.

"Just eat it! Don't make eyes at it!" shouted Sasuke, shoving the bowl towards Naruto, the soup almost spilling making Naruto jump towards it in order to save it. Actually both Narutos had jumped to save it but the other one had also failed to go anywhere near it, brained himself against a counter and promptly destroyed itself. There was a puff of smoke both boys ignored, well Sasuke ignored it while Naruto winced at the phantom pain just by looking at his clone, before going back to what they were doing. For Sasuke it was eating and for Naruto it was summoning another clone because the other one was destroyed.

"Thanks for the meal!" Not that Naruto was thanking Sasuke for the meal, he did pay for it after all so it was merely his share of the food. It was the principle of the thing more than anything else. Anyone who said otherwise was a big fat liar.

They ate in silence, which meant that Naruto was slurping down his ramen and Sasuke was looking disgusted by how fast and messy he was eating his ramen.

"Oh! This reminds me-" "Don't eat with your mouth full, nobody wants to see what you're chewing." "-Iruka-sensei wanted me to say hello to you."

Sasuke stared at Naruto for a few minutes, doing his weird look that he sometimes like he didn't really know what to expect.

"You're still in regular contact with Iruka-sensei?"

"Yep! Iruka-sensei is the best, dattebayo! He treats me to ramen every week and we talk too! I saw him right after our first C ranked mission too where he treated me to as much bowls of ramen that I wanted!"

"You...you really like Iruka-sensei." Naruto nodded as he ate the rest of his ramen, it had taken years of practice to get the ability to eat and talk at the same time without people thinking that it was gross and while Naruto was talented he wasn't that talented. Sasuke remained silent.

"You should go home instead of making dinner tonight, my hand is healed and I took the last of the medicine."

"Hah? You made me clean up your scrolls and bring you lunch for nothing!"

"It wasn't nothing, you watched me take my medicine and did a chore. You did what you were supposed to do but I'm not letting you try and cook again. My ceiling is blackened and I am one layer closer to the spare bedroom, I'm not risking you making a hole in the floors either with you trying to cook me dinner."

Admittedly Naruto didn't want to be one step closer to the roof either but he wasn't to give up, taking care of Sasuke was given to him by Kakashi and he would never give up a mission even if the person that he had to take care of was going to be stubborn about it.

"No way! I said that I'll complete this and I will!"

Sasuke slammed his hands on the table, "It's practically complete! You don't need to be here!" Naruto eyed his injured hand tentatively before deciding that if Sasuke was well enough to be bashing his hands around then he was going to be fine.

"I'm going to make you dinner and that's final, dattebayo!" Why couldn't the bastard just let him do this one thing then leave?

"It's my house!"

"It's my job to take care of you!"

"I don't need your help!" growled Sasuke glaring at Naruto for all that he was worth, Naruto just glared back because he was going to win this damnit and the bastard was just going to live with it.

"You hurt your hand! Of course you need my help!"

"I could have had done it by myself!" Sasuke picked up his bowl and threw it at him, he barely dodged the Ichiraku bowl especially when it came from a pissed off Uchiha but the bowl hit the ground harshly creating a nauseating sound. He hoped it wasn't broken but he couldn't afford to keep his eyes away from Sasuke to check either.

"How? By hurting your hand even more? I knew that you were a bastard but I never knew how much of a stubborn bastard you are!"

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"It does too, dattebayo!"

"I want you out of here!"

There was another silence. Sasuke was huffing and had the sharingan out (when did that happen?), and Naruto, Naruto just slid back into his seat.    

Naruto was trying to remember his nīndo way, it was a little hard with Sasuke's words echoing through his head and took a couple of breaths. Slowly he got up, Sasuke shooting him a victorious grin, and walked into the kitchen to help with the dinner.

There was a pause before a chair scrapped against the wooden floor and the thumping of feet came closer to where Naruto had started to peel potatoes. Why were potatoes so weird to touch?

"What are you doing? I thought I told you to get out."

"Yeah but I'm not giving up my nindō ways. It doesn't matter if this was just Kakashi-sensei asking me to help you, I'm not giving up."

"This has nothing to do with your nindō ways."

"It has everything to do with my nindō ways. It means that I don't give up, not on a mission, not on the village and especially not on my stubborn bastard teammate who doesn't accept help from anyone."

There was another pause before Sasuke clicked his tongue, "Do what you want but if you're going to continue making dinner I'm going to supervise you so you don't burn my house down."

"Bastard."

"Shut up and peel the potatoes properly."

Sasuke went to hovering over his shoulder, which for the record was super annoying and it's like the bastard wanted Naruto to mess up with all the hovering, not that he would call it hovering. The bastard probably called it something stupid like 'protecting his kitchen'.

"I can hear you being awkward, bastard. You might as well just say what you want to say." There was just one part of the potato that dipped in and he kept having to peel more and more from the potato just to get to that one spot. It was really annoying, this is why ramen was better; there were no weird dips in it that made everything lumpy.

Sasuke clicked his tongue and said, "I want you to teach me the shadow clone jutsu." Naruto accidentally dropped the potato, it was just so slippery and did Sasuke really say that?

"Did you just really say that?" Naruto had to know and stared at Sasuke, the bastard was looking away but there was definitely a faint blush on his cheeks causing Naruto to grin. Embarrassing Sasuke was the best, it was hard to do so but so worth it especially when Sakura wasn't around to scold him or say how cool Sasuke was.

"Shut up!" Sasuke now had crossed his arms and was facing away from Naruto but Naruto knew, he knew that he had seen that blush, "I just want to learn the shadow clone jutsu."

Naruto pretended to think about it, well he was thinking about it but not the way most would, no he was thinking about what he would make Sasuke do before he taught him the shadow clone. Sure, he could keep the jutsu to himself since it was his speciality but this was one of his teammates and if Sakura had asked him to learn it he would gladly teach her without embarrassing her.

Naruto didn't even bother to wipe the grin off of his face, "I'll teach you but first you have to do the sexy no jutsu." Sasuke's head turned so fast that Naruto felt a vague concern about his health before squishing it.

"No."

"That's my condition to teaching the shadow clone jutsu. You have to learn and perform the sexy no jutsu first and it has to be good, dattebayo!"

"I won't learn it!"

"Then you won't learn the shadow clones either." Naruto was now having the time of his life, he was going to make Sasuke do the sexy no jutsu and get away with it. Where was a camera when he needed it?

"The so called 'sexy no jutsu' is just a transformation of women! It's not even a new jutsu or anything!"

"Then no shadow clone."

"Fine! I'll do your stupid jutsu but you better keep your end of the deal!" Naruto grinned harder than he had done so in months. Now this was helping a teammate out.

* * *

 

Kakashi had been a bit concerned, only a little, about his wayward students. Sakura was easy, she just needed to find a reason to be a better kunoichi. He wasn't going to help her on it since it was really her problem to find a reason and not his but still she was the easiest student he had and good chakra control with the bonus of no major mental health issues.  

Now Naruto and Sasuke on the other hand...

Kakashi had talked to Naruto a bit earlier when he was looking for the knockoff versions of the Icha Icha series when he met Naruto in the civilian shopping district. From what Naruto had said their relationship still wasn't good, what was the point of forcing them together if they didn't get along? Icha Icha Violence lied to him.

So here he was in Uchiha complex slowly making his way to Sasuke's registered house. He didn't even need to know Sasuke's address for the house (he did know it) since all he had to do was follow the sound of shouting.

The closer he got the louder it got, which was impressive considering that the walls were insulated to be at the very least semi soundproof.

Knocking on Sasuke's door, heavily because you don't hear anything from lightly knocking, Kakashi could hear more shouting and thumping from the other side. Were they fighting again?

The door opened, finally, revealing a blonde woman, almost fully naked apart from the smoke tastefully covering up certain areas, and a black haired woman, this one with clothing. It was like he stumbled upon a private floating world within the apartment and made him question for a second if he had got the right apartment, however he knew for a fact that the blonde woman was Naruto and that meant that the black haired woman was Sasuke.

"Kakashi-sensei!" chirped the blonde one, well Naruto with more assets then he had two hours ago.

Kakashi hummed, to make an inappropriate comment or not? These were his underage students and he wasn't that horrible that he would hit on them even if it was for a joke, they might take him seriously and that was a seal tag that he wasn't going to touch.

"So what's going on here?" asked Kakashi as casually as he could, it wouldn't do for his students to become too flustered. Sasuke blushed faintly, he really did make a nice looking woman but that didn't answer his question.

"I'm helping the bastard out!" Naruto was all grins that looked like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, Kakashi was rather impressed that Naruto even got Sasuke to do a transformation like this especially in his own home. Maybe Icha Icha Violence didn't lie to him after all.

"Oh?" One worded questions were the best questions, they didn't give anything away and they usually made people talk as well, not that he needed that with Naruto since Naruto talks anyway.

"Yep! I said that I'd teach Sasuke-kun the shadow clone jutsu if he did a proper sexy no jutsu!" Kakashi felt the amused smile on his face freeze. Ah, this wasn't good, not good at all.

"I told you that the sexy no jutsu isn't even a real jutsu! It's just something that you made up to cover for the fact that you are just using a basic jutsu!" scolded Sasuke, her arms awkwardly trying to find a good way of folding over her chest. If they're going to use transforms like that then they should probably also be taught basic gender gestures as well, something to look into.

"Now, now, no complaining about a jutsu that could help you. Any and all jutsu are to be learned," Sasuke looked like Kakashi was bullshitting him, well he was, partly, while Naruto had another shit eating grin. However, "Naruto-kun, you can't teach Sasuke-kun the shadow clone jutsu."

"What?!" Sasuke looked disbelieving and that was more expression then he's seen on the boy in a while, maybe he could keep making Sasuke use the sexy no jutsu so he wouldn't be so blank anymore? Maybe not, his reputation (not that he has a good one) would go down very, very fast if he did that, he might even be taken away from his cute little students.

"I can too!"

"I mean, you're not the best teacher for him."

Naruto looked crestfallen, "I can do it though," Kakashi sighed, this is why he didn't want his students to have overlapping abilities, "I mean I'll do just of a good job as you, so why can't I teach him?"

"Naruto-kun, do you remember the risks involved with the shadow clone jutsu?"

Naruto blinked a few times before asking, "There's risks?" with Sasuke echoing him.

"You never told me there were risks!"

"I never knew there were risks, dattebayo!"

"How did you not know?"

"I was interrupted while reading the scroll!"

Kakashi placed a hand on each of their heads to get them to shut up. He definitely wasn't ever going to have children, these students of his were enough.

"Right, so new rule, any jutsu that you learn you have to learn the risks and benefits to each jutsu before you're able to teach it to someone else."

"So I can't teach Sasuke-kun the shadow clone jutsu?"

"No, but if Sasuke-kun wants to learn the shadow clone jutsu he will need to ask me."

"I'm right here." growled Sasuke as he let go of the transformation jutsu, Kakashi's hand had sat on top of air for a second before gravity made it land on a much smaller Sasuke's head. Kakashi turned a one eyed smile on Sasuke, extra bright because if the boy was going to ask for training then Kakashi was going to enjoy this moment.

Sasuke clicked his tongue before walking further into his apartment leaving a smiling Kakashi and pouting female Naruto.

"Well I guess he doesn't want to learn the shadow clone jutsu."

"But it's so awesome, dattebayo!" Naruto released his 'sexy no jutsu' as well, Kakashi made a mental reminder to test how long he could keep a transformation jutsu for, "Are there really risks to it though?"

"Yes, Naruto-kun, however you seem to be safe from them so you shouldn't worry too much about it." Naruto nodded before walking further into the house.

"Oi! Bastard, I still need to cook you dinner!"

"I don't want your charcoal!"

"Oi! I'm a great cook!"

"Ramen doesn't count as cooking!"

"Don't you insult ramen like that, dattebayo!"

Kakashi smiled to himself before letting himself into the house and having a look around. Mainly neat apart from a bowl from Ichiraku's on the ground and a similar bowl on the table with a container from Ichiraku's as well.

"Is that a potato on the ground?" asked Kakashi lazily as he got his shoes off.

"Ah!" shouted Naruto that was quickly followed by Sasuke's, "Moron!"

Yeah, these cute little students of his were just enough for him. He didn't need children when his legacy was staring him right in the face. Kakashi winced when he saw Naruto accidentally break a bowl, yeah he definitely didn't need or want children of his own.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my Narutoverse commentary is somewhat running low but what I'm currently on is trying to make Neji was right 2k18 a thing. This is because Neji was absolutely right during the last part of the chunin exams where he goes on about how lineage and privilege means everything in the world.  
> It is an almost perfect commentary of a jaded individual about the world around him before he got infected with Naruto Friendship no jutsu(TM).  
> Of course this doesn't excuse the fact that he tried to kill his cousin and possible future head of house but like damn Neji knew his philosophy and sociology of his world.
> 
> Also if you didn't know Neji is one of my favourite characters. He's basically the reason I'm writing this fanfic due to my reaction of "No, what do you mean he's dead? He can't be dead."


	6. For the past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the real point of the whole AU thing is happening in this chapter where Kabuto is talked about being adopted by an oc, by the name of Yakushi Yasu instead of the whole Yakushi Nono thing happening. Also a friendship between Kakashi and Anko with background. 
> 
> Warnings: Kakashi being an asshole?, hints to child abuse I guess? Do I need that warning if it was canon?

Kakashi had to make the most of teaching genin and he did so in many ways. Like now he had already checked into the hospital for his joint appointment with Sasuke and was currently on the side of the hospital looking down at Sasuke, and coincidentally Sakura as well who was just leaving.

Sakura managed to catch Sasuke while he was standing in front of the hospital; she wasn't as animated as usual. Kakashi hoped that there wasn't something wrong with her, she was crucial to his team and he would miss her if she died or something. Maybe. At the least he would mourn her and tend to her grave if she had one occasionally.

Sasuke was waiting for Kakashi to 'show up' actually but he didn't seem to consider the fact that Kakashi could be anywhere and not just in the usual linear directions that normal people came from. What a pity.

Kakashi lightly hummed as he decided what to do.

Doctor Akira Matsuoka was not a man you wanted to keep waiting for an appointment and by this point Kakashi didn't really trust any other doctors. Doctor Akira had been his doctor for such a long time that the guy was probably going to outlive Kakashi as well. So he could be on time for the appointment and not make the nurses look everywhere for him.

Or, he could get his kicks from watching Sasuke gradually grow more annoyed with life and enter the hospital by himself, or possibly with Sakura, and at that point use a Shunshin to arrive earlier in Doctor Akira's office then Sasuke.

Choices, choices.

Sasuke looked up and for a second he thought Sasuke had saw him before realising that he was checking the sun and headed inside the hospital. Sakura looked like she was going to go back into the hospital with Sasuke before walking away depressed that she didn't succeed in seducing her teammate again.

The split seconds he watched this happen a small amount of disappointment flooded him leaving him astounded. He didn't know he was that emotionally invested in the welfare of his genin team. You learn something every day.

That also made his choice.

Teleporting directly into room one hundred and fifty-one he was greeted with the sight of Doctor Akira doing paper work and a kunai on his throat. Kakashi resisted the urge to kill whoever had the kunai at his throat.

"Kakashi-san. I thought I told you to stop teleporting directly into my office after the last time." Doctor Akira's voice was low and turned gravelly every now and then due to his throat injuries that Kakashi definitely didn't know how it happened. Files at the hospital were so easy to get into especially when you were a patient. The hospital should update their security.

There was the sound of a rhythmic clicking on a pen; five times.

Doctor Akira must have been startled quite a bit.

"Kabuto-kun, let him go."

The kunai withdrew from his throat and Kakashi got a good look at 'Kabuto-kun'.

It was eerie.

'Kabuto-kun's' hair was a similar colour to his own though a bit darker and had eyes almost as dark as his as well. It was the fact that Kakashi didn't need glasses and his hair was shorter and more gravity-defiant that really reassured him that he didn't actually have blood relatives. However the uneasiness was still there.

He really wanted to make 'Kabuto-kun' to perform a jutsu where his chakra would light up just to prove that they weren't related. Later. He had time to stalk 'Kabuto-kun' later.

"Ah. I didn't realise that you had an assistant, I thought you didn't like people looking over your research?"

"I don't. Kabuto-kun was assigned to me by the director."

"The director? You mean Yakushi Yasu-sensei?" asked Kakashi. He didn't actually need clarification. Yakushi ran a tight shift within the hospital and basically everything could be contributed to them.

"Yes." said Doctor Akira tightly. Something was wrong here.

"Sorry about that, Yakushi Kabuto, nice to meet you Kakashi-san,"

Oh. Right.

"Ah, like wise. I didn't know that Yakushi-sensei had a kid. Nice reflexes by the way,"

What Doctor Akira wasn't saying was that it was nepotism at its finest that got Kabuto his shift with Doctor Akira. Yakushi probably wanted to solidify their power within the hospital by having Kabuto be a respected theoretical doctor as well.

Kabuto ducked his head and rubbed it, "Thank you," before he looked up and away, "It's an honour to hear that from you," before going back to Doctor Akira. Kabuto's body language was odd. Enough spine to stand straight but not enough spine to look people in the eye while talking to them. Very odd.

There was a knock on the door making Kabuto turn back to the door but Kakashi beat him to it. Opening it just wide enough all the person on the other side could see was Kakashi.

Sasuke was glaring about leg height, then frowned quickly.

He looked up and made an enraged sound like he was going to go wild and attack Kakashi. It was what Kakashi lived for by this point, honestly.

"Ah! Sasuke-kun _you're_ late," said Kakashi cheerfully. He always wanted to do that since most of his students kept doing it to him. The look on Sasuke's face was priceless.

"You didn't meet me at the front!" shouted Sasuke. It was glorious.

"You didn't meet _me_ at the front, honestly what is the use of teaching you to walk up trees if you don't even walk up the side of the hospital to meet me?"

Kakashi slightly wished that he had his headband uncovered for this. He wanted it in his memories forever.

He opened the door wider to let Sasuke into the room.

 Doctor Akira looked unamused by this all while Kabuto looked a bit uneasy and possibly confused.

Doctor Akira cleared his throat and said, "To the patient bed," they both start walking to the bed, "Sharingan revealed." Kakashi took time to take off his headband while Sasuke just stopped heading towards the bed.

"What?" asked Sasuke. Kakashi turned to Sasuke. Now that he has his Sharingan out he could finally see all the fine details of his face like the fact that Sasuke was adorably confused.

"Ah. Akira-sensei is the only theoretical Sharingan doctor in Konoha. He needs to check it," said Kakashi. It was the reason why Doctor Akira was even his doctor and for so long as well.

"What does theoretical doctor even mean?" asked Sasuke frowning and being broody in general. There goes Kakashi's personal amusement.

"He has theories about the Sharingan that can't be explained yet." piped Kabuto before freezing as three sets of eyes locked onto him. Poor kid was nervous. Sasuke made a 'tch' sound before glaring away.

There was a moment of silence before Sasuke turned back to the bed. Doctor Akira followed suit and turned to Kakashi.

"Well would you look at that? How cute," cooed Kakashi as Kabuto went to the desk to grab a clipboard for Doctor Akira.

"Eyes at me," said Doctor Akira flashing a light in his eyes. Kakashi dutifully followed the light as best as he could.

"So what's the theoretical part of the Sharingan?" asked Sasuke as he watched Doctor Akira running his hand over Kakashi's temple and forehead without touching him. It was a chilling sensation.

"It's more to do with a theory that I have about the Sharingan and the way it works. If I'm correct about my theory then I'll be working with you when you're older." If Doctor Akira was any less controlled he'd probably have a manic light to his eyes that Kakashi knew all too well and took the clipboard from Kabuto to write things down, from where Kakashi could see he saw that everything was healthy with 'acceptable chakra loss from Sharingan' and 'no deviance from usual Sharingan'.

"My theory is that the Sharingan -the Saimingan version of it- can be used to treat long term illnesses and diseases like chronic pains, asthma or possibly even cancer. It would be revolutionary if it works for treating existing conditions that have been gained over time -also gaining more ninja into the forces," said Doctor Akira distractedly as he checked Sasuke over.

"Through hypnotism?" asked Sasuke sceptically. Kakashi was going to grow so proud of his genin team when they finally start questioning everything they know and decide that they'd rather not do anything about the system and the way it is systematically designed to create endless military. So proud.

"Be still," scolded Doctor Akira, "Well, it -the Sharingan- is special when it comes to hypnotism and genjutsu...but yes, through hypnotism if you control the mind then you could theoretically control the body."

"It's quite groundbreaking if it does do what Akira-sensei wants it to do, especially with those that have been injured during the Hidden Wars," exclaimed Kabuto as he watched Doctor Akira look over Sasuke.

"Yes..." Doctor Akira started a new page to write things down like 'developing nicely', 'healed left wrist tai fracture' and 'possible checkups each quarter year?', "You two may go now. Everything is fine -oh, Sasuke-kun don't train for another day just in case,"

Sasuke opened his mouth to start to argue but Kakashi got in a cheerful "Bye Akira-sensei!" as he guided Sasuke out of the room by his shoulder. Everything was going to be fine. Just fine. Now he had one less worry.

Sasuke struggled as he was escorted out the room and down the corridor before Kakashi turned him around, "Don't argue with him." warned Kakashi.

"Why not?"

"Because he's likely to be the only Sharingan specialist you'll ever have for your entire life and you only want one doctor. Especially if you want to keep your clan secrets a secret. Okie dokie, Sasuke-kun, this is where I leave you, remember no training for a day," said Kakashi as he waited for Sasuke's noise of agreement before he left. It was for the best.

He actually had to get things ready for Naruto's mock mission. Chakra paper was so expensive.

* * *

 

Kakashi sighed as he played around with his shallow cup, debating on whether or not he should just let the other have it instead. Anko hummed suspiciously as she took a sip out of her own cup. There was two empty bottles of sake on the table with a third bottle slowly being emptied on the table, there was also a bowl of salty snacks in between them. She didn't even make a pretence of seducing him using the snacks but all that showed was probably how comfortable she was sitting in the seat opposite him.

The bar that they were in, the Rusty Kunai, had just the right amount of low level noise and bitter smell of alcohol. It was a modern bar that opened up a few years back, and the way you could tell was the fact that there were more chūnin and career genin than the average bar.

"So what was so urgent that you invited me to my favourite bar so early in the evening and willing to pay for it?" asked Anko between chews. Her posture was lazy, as much as his own currently was, but her eyes were wary like she was expecting the worst.

Kakashi sighed again, mainly for show but some of it was real stress, "One of my students has a mock mission soon but I haven't got arrangements for the other two yet," Anko winced out of sympathy and chewed more snacks, "I need someone to take at least one of them."

"No. I'm not good with kids." Anko pointed the cup in her hand in a way that was definitely threatening even if Anko hadn't voiced the threat yet.

"Come on, it'll just be two weeks and two days." Kakashi definitely didn't whine, because Kakashi doesn't whine despite what Anko might think. Also Anko was a filthy liar when it came to Kakashi and spreading rumours.

Anko shook her head in refusal, "Why don't you ask Gai-sensei if you're so desperate?" Kakashi gave her a look to try and say how bad that idea was and Anko winced again before sighing, "I'm sorry I ever even voiced that thought."

"It's fine, I thought of it too but the thought of Gai-sensei doing that disappointed thing is too much to bear," They shared a collective sigh and went back to slowly nursing their alcohol.

 "You know I can't do it. I just _can't_ ," There was raw agony in her voice that said there was more than one issue with her not handling a student. A shared agony. How did one being manage to screw up so many lives mused Kakashi, "Damnit, now I need alcohol."

Kakashi hummed.

"I wanted you to take Sakura-chan, I think she needs to be more murder happy and less civilian seductive."

Anko let out a bitter laugh that held more edges to it than a shuriken, "More murder happy, huh? I'd ruin that girl if you gave her to me. Why can't you teach her later how to be more murder happy?"

"I just felt it would be inappropriate if I told her off for not wanting to focus on the other aspects of being a kunoichi than the seduction side."

Anko let out the bitter laugh again. Her eyes lost in painful memories that she barely showed anyone. Kakashi didn't know if he was privileged or not for seeing this side of her, sometimes he wished he didn't know her at all to get away from their shared background. Other times he knew he needed her the same way she needed him.

"Why don't you send her to Asuma-sensei?" she asked, her mind only somewhat focused on the conversation but Kakashi didn't mind. It wasn't the first time she'd done this and Kakashi had done the same back to her as well before.

"And be in his _debt_?"

"What did you do _this_ time?" There was an accusing tone that Kakashi knew he deserved but pretended that he didn't.

"I don't think I like that accusing tone of yours, I haven't done anything to him."  Anko snorted inelegantly and the faded look in her eyes was going away. Good.

"So you don't want the little prince to have one of your students and Gai-sensei isn't an option either. You're really screwed."

"Thank you so much for pointing that out." Anko laughed, the tone was much happier than it was before.

"You're welcome," Anko's tone was so sugary sweet that Kakashi could feel his teeth starting to rot, "But I'll ask around for you; to see if anyone is willing to take on one of your students on so short notice."

Kakashi tried to give her a honest smile, he wasn't sure if it turned out alright or if she even got the message that he was grateful but he figured he did something correct since she smiled brightly in return before he remembered he hadn't emptied the third bottle yet so he let Anko have the rest. She would probably appreciate it more.

"Awwwww, you know just how to get to a woman's heart." teased Anko and promptly downed her cup before refilling her cup again with the last of the bottle.

Kakashi placed his arm on the table to hold his head up staring past Anko to look at the pretty waitress that was talking to her co-worker, "Like you don't have people plying you with drinks."

Anko stuck her tongue out. Kakashi could smell the faint sweetness on her breath, probably dango, that was covered by the strong smell of alcohol and tried not to make a face.

Anko looked amused like she knew what was bothering him, probably knew as well, "People like sweets unlike certain freaks." she knew him all too well, this was the problem with Anko. It was also a problem he was never going to find the solution to because he didn't want to.

"Most people also don't become interrogators unlike certain freaks." Kakashi shot back immediately.

Anko mock gasped and used her empty hand to cover her heart as if it was the first time he'd made that argument. He has been making that argument since the day she first started in T&I and he doubted it was going to be the last time he made it as well.

"Anko-san?" A woman voiced the question from behind Kakashi, it made the hairs on the back of his neck rise, while Kakashi pretended that it didn't. It wasn't that he didn't hear or smell her behind him but the close proximity to him made a small part of him say to make sure he kept her in his sight from now on just in case.

"Oh, Kurenai-chan, how many times do I need to tell you it's just Anko," purred Anko and made eyes at the woman behind Kakashi and since Kakashi was still in Anko's eyesight he was treated with a look that made him feel violated even when he knew that Anko didn't actually mean anything, "Please _do_ join us."

"Oh, I couldn't, I could find someone else to drink with." A sweet but not overly sweet tone, and unfairly polite. Must be the one the Hokage was complaining about a day ago going by the name and attitude.

Slowly Kakashi turned to see what Asuma had been refusing to marry or date for a while. The first thing he noticed was red eyes. He almost tensed before reminding himself that the Uchiha clan had been massacred for a while leaving only two survivors, not three. The next thing he noted was her lipstick was the same shade as her eyes and that her hair was a mess of long spikes that seemed to have a mind of their own. The famed Kurenai Yūhi.

Kakashi put on a cheerful one eyed smile that could be interpreted as friendly. The other interpretation was aggressively passive-aggressive. Not that he was aggressive, or passive-aggressive, he had nothing to be aggressive of. Especially not in a little bar with Anko sitting opposite him. Nothing to be protective of there.

"I don't think we've met before." said Kakashi with as much gusto as he could, Anko subtly kicked him under the table and like a good ninja he didn't let any hurt show but he swears she lines the edges of her sandals with hardened steel.

Kurenai looked bewildered before faintly blushing, "Oh, I apologise. I'm Yūhi Kurenai, team leader of Team Eight."

Kakashi decided to turn up the charm a bit, "Hatake Kakashi, pleasure to meet you," He watched distantly as Yūhi blushed a slightly deeper red. Anko kicked him again and he could feel the weight of her staring him down, "Please join us, we were just about to get more bottles of sake."

Yūhi looked unsure before deciding that free drinks was worth what was probably going to be an awkward outing, "Thank you for the invitation."

 Well, she was willing to have free drinks at least. His opinion of her was increasing.

She sat down next to Anko, which was probably for the best; it was much easier to keep her in his sight.

Anko fake pouted, "I see how this is, when I invite you to anywhere with me you're like 'Oh no, I couldn't possibly!' but when Kakashi-kun asks you, you practically fall over to say yes. I thought we had something special!"

Kurenai sighed, "Anko-san, we met as drinking buddies. I don't think that counts as special. Also I didn't want to interrupt your outing." Anko pouted for a few more seconds before she cracked up in laughter that was more show than actual laughter, the pretty waitress shot looks of concern towards their table. Kakashi sent the waitress a wave to reassure her that everything was fine and that there was nothing to see here.

"Yes, I can see how you two have something special. Drinking makes very special bonds indeed." Kakashi make sure every word as lazy and long sounding as possible just to show how much he thinks of the special bond. Anko did her cackle laugh again while Yūhi looked unimpressed.

"We were just talking about how one of his kids-" "They're my students, not my children." interjected Kakashi, more of a token protest than anything else, "-got a mock mission!"

Yūhi looked startled before a warm smile blossomed across her face, "Congratulations! How long have you had your students for?"

Anko cackled again, more of a mocking tone than anything else and judging by the looks that Yūhi was shooting her she knew it too. Kakashi looked towards the pretty waitress again, making sure that she wasn't shooting more concerned looks their way but she seemed to be ignoring their whole table, which was a pity. He needed more alcohol for this.

"I got them last academy graduation."

"W-what?" Yūhi looked shocked, "Usually they'd have to be chūnin level to gain a specialisation like that!"

Kakashi nodded slowly, like he didn't know this already. His opinion of Yūhi just lowered a bit.

"Yeah, unfortunately his other two kids don't have anywhere to go when he trains the kid for the mock mission." chimed in Anko. Kakashi sent her a look that quite clearly said he knew what she was doing and how did she even get to be in T&I in the first place. Anko shot him a cheery grin that was as fake as her laugh was but that was okay, sometimes people forget how to smile sincerely, Kakashi forgot how to many times before. It was fine.

Yūhi made an inquiring noise as she started to pay more attention to Anko. Kakashi called over a waitress, not the pretty one that was ignoring their table, to order a cup for Yūhi and another few bottles for the table. If Anko was going to go the whole way in trying to get Yūhi to take in one of his students then the least he could do was ply both women with more alcohol.

"Oh yeah, the mock mission is really soon and Kakashi-sensei, here, didn't even prepare for it. Can you believe that?" Anko barely waited as a pause before she started to talk again, "So now he has two kids that are probably going to be stuck on 'self-training' for like a week."

Yūhi worried her lip for a bit, "I guess...I could help take them both in, one of my students is going to be out for a week, it is only for a week, right?"

Kakashi hummed, "Two weeks, actually. I would prefer it if I could keep my other two little students separate. They are..." Kakashi thought about how to make this diplomatic but really couldn't think of any better word than 'problematic', "problematic together."

"How problematic?" she asked, her red lips tightening together until it was a thin line and Kakashi tried not to wince. He knew he wasn't the best teacher in the world like his teacher was but he was trying.

"One is trying to seduce her teammate, her tactics aren't the best but I'm not worried about her. Sooner or later she'll be murder happy."

"Murder happy." deadpanned Yūhi. Kakashi nodded as if she was asking a question even though he knew she really wasn't. Anko, not the one to be ignored, chimed in an enthusiastic "Yeah!" like she didn't dismiss that option not even ten minutes ago.

"Yes, so as soon as she can do that she'll be set. However it's my other student, he has some issues with teamwork."

"Are you sure you don't want me to take both? It's only two weeks." Yūhi curled her mouth into a friendly smile that looked at home on her face, it was inviting but Kakashi had known more tempting women in his life so this smile barely registered. Kakashi shook his head.

"No, I want Sasuke-kun to learn more about teamwork."

Yūhi turned white, it only served to make her eyes and lips to stand out more.

"Sasuke-kun as in Uchiha Sasuke-kun?" she questioned.

Kakashi nodded to say yes, "Are you sure you still want to take my student?"

Yūhi bit her lip, silently watching as a waitress placed a cup near her and a two new bottles of warm sake on the table. Yūhi curled her hand around the new cup while Anko ignored the mood as she eagerly poured the new bottles into empty cups.

"I'm not sure I should," Yūhi peered into her cup like it held the secrets to the world, "Do you know the history of my clan?" asked Yūhi.

Kakashi thought about what he knew about the Yūhi clan and could honestly say not much. They had red eyes and black unruly hair, it was probably a coincidence but if she was mentioning it in conjunction with Sasuke then it probably wasn't a coincidence.

"I assume your clan had a _history_ with the Uchiha clan?"

"Kakashi-sensei, you make it sound so dirty." interjected Anko, giggling and eagerly grabbing the bar snacks to eat them suggestively as if she was making a point, which she was because she was kid like that. Both he and Yūhi ignored Anko's actions with ease. She must have been drinking with Anko more often than he thought.

"Mah, mah, it's only your imagination."

"No, Kakashi-sensei is correct. My clan were originally retainers to the Uchiha clan."

"That doesn't sound so bad, you're embarrassed that you didn't help Sasuke-kun after the massacre?" asked Kakashi, and really not helping the last of a clan didn't actually sound that terrible. Was it dishonourable? Yes, but not terrible.

"One of my ancestors eloped with an Uchiha clan member," Okay, that was terrible from what he knew of the Uchiha clan, "Ever since then my clan had been dishonoured. Luckily for me and my father this was only clan legend from before the Warring Era but my clan hasn't been near an Uchiha since as far as I know." Kakashi winced. That was terrible. In fact it was worse than he thought.

"Do you think this would affect you working with Sasuke-kun?"

Yūhi took a few sips of her alcohol before getting a snack as well to nibble on, "I don't know. I can try but it would depend if he feels comfortable working in my presence in a professional capacity. "

"Just don't tell the kid and everything will be fine." said Anko, waving her cup around in the air. A fair bit of the alcohol spilled out of the cup and onto the table but she didn't seem to mind in the least, it was at that point Kakashi realised just how tipsy she was.

"Anko-san! I can't lie to a student like that! He at least deserves the truth!" Actually, lying to Sasuke was almost a past time for Kakashi. Kakashi tried not to think about it that much and what that said about him or the fact Anko had the same idea.

"Call me Anko." pouted Anko, the edge of her lips jutting out just a tad more than her usual pouts.

"I don't even call my teammates from my genin days by their first name without prefixes."

"Maybe you should loosen up, I know a few things that could help with that."  Anko had hooded eyes and licked a snack like she wished that it was something else. She was definitely drunk, which was odd because despite how drunk she usually acts while drinking she doesn't normally have that much nor did she usually act that seductive either.

"Anko-chan." warned Kakashi, sure he could watch and enjoy the show that Anko was putting on in making people uncomfortable but he did need Yūhi's help in taking in Sasuke. Anko stuck her tongue out, all stick and gross and she knew that it was gross. Brat.

Yūhi raised an eyebrow, the smile on her face was like a shark scenting blood in the water, "You two sure are close."

Kakashi could hear the connotations of a romantic relationship within her words and from Anko's expression she heard it too.

"Ha! As if I'd ever like a guy like him," Anko laughed it off, looking a bit ill, almost like someone was killing the thing she loved the most. Kakashi knew if he looked under the table Anko would be curling her toes inside her sandals in an attempt to calm down.

 "We've merely known each other for a while," Kakashi took pity on Anko, he didn't mind the rumours of relationships that weren't true but he did know that Anko minded, "practically raised together."

"You two were in the same genin team?" asked Yūhi surprised. Anyone would be surprised considering both his teammates were dead and the fact for many years people knew him as 'Friend-Killer Kakashi'.

"Nope," Kakashi made it sound as casual and calm as he could, "I don't think that we've ever been in the same team before, I don't know why though." Kakashi did actually know why he and Anko ever never on the same team before, he was also pretty sure Anko knew the reason as well.

He was fine with that. It was for the best.

Yūhi looked surprised at that information.

"My genin teammates are still alive and kicking. One even has a genin team of his own, has for a while and Kakashi-sensei recently saw him about a week back, the other is a _Hyūga_." Yūhi smiled sympathetically towards Anko.

"The Hyūga clan aren't that bad, some of them are quite nice." said Yūhi still smiling but a much strained one this time.

"Urgh, just because you got the one good Hyūga doesn't mean that the rest aren't a bunch of bastards with a spear lodged in their-"

"Anko-san!" scolded Yūhi sounded scandalised.

"-asses who only think-"

"So will you do it?" interjected Kakashi. He needed her consent, not bantering with Anko about whether or not the Hyūga clan were assholes. The general consensus was that they were assholes, anyway.

Yūhi looked towards him, all red and black and white, he could have had kicked himself for not going with his assumption of Uchiha when he first saw her.

"Only if he agrees to it," she said after a bit of a pause.

"Excellent," Kakashi gave her the cheerful one eyed smile that drove Sasuke crazy, "well I need to go so I can tell my adorable team in the morning," Kakashi saw Anko open her mouth, "and yes I remember that I need to pay so don't worry."

Anko gave him a wolfish grin and a parting kick to his legs before she happily went back to tossing back her drinks. Kakashi was pretty sure he was going to have deep purple bruises on his legs for days thanks to Anko. The woman was a menace and he was grateful for it.

Kakashi sighed and got up to head to the counter in his usual lazy walk, getting his wallet ready and possibly his quick fingers as well.

The bartender, different from the pretty waitress, that was behind the counter was perky with a hint of a sly grin that spoke volumes if he thought about cheating her out of her money. She would make a good loan shark mused Kakashi, she had sharp eyes as well that watched his every hand gesture; probably a side effect of being in a ninja village and getting cheated out of money before.

Kakashi made sure to give Anko and Yūhi a wave goodbye before he left the bar, just in time see Yūhi's hesitating wave goodbye, her face a mixture of a frown, a smile, and concern before they turned to each other to talk again.

It looked like Anko was going to be just fine making her way home tonight.

It was probably nice having normal friends. Too bad the normal people around him become abnormal sooner or later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wasn't too sure what I was going to post as my fact of Narutoverse for this chapter before one of my betas mentioned that they had to look up what Saimingan part of the Sharingan is. So this part is dedicated to how OP and terrible having the basic full tomoe Sharingan is without going into the evolutions.
> 
> So the basic Sharingan is made of 2 parts; the Saimingan, which places people under hypnosis to make it appear that the user can see into the future, and the Dōsatsugan, which is the main part of the Sharingan bullshit that memorises like everything and can see chakra. 
> 
> So already the Sharingan is a pretty valuable dōjutsu from just having the basic there.
> 
> Apart from the fact there are drawbacks from the Sharingan without the whole possible going blind thing that the users seemingly have going from them (the only basis of this is Itachi, Sasuke, and Sarada) and the whole "clan of hatred" thing that the Uchihas have got going for them. Kishimoto really wanted to make the Uchiha clan the most depressing clan ever.
> 
> Drawbacks of having the Sharingan:  
> 1) The Sharingan makes the user try to keep up with what it's seeing, meaning that the user suffers from over stress their body just to keep up. That means more broken bodies unless you're careful.
> 
> 2) It's tied to emotion, meaning that you can activate it from will alone but god forbid you enter a highly emotionally charge argument and not activate the Sharingan by accident. See point 3 for further reason why that's bad.
> 
> 3) You remember everything you've recorded from it. Not sure for how long you remember it for, it's kind of implied for Kakashi he remembers everything that his Sharingan has recorded and jesus that is nightmare fuel right there. Like every time you've killed people you end up remembering that because your Sharingan was on? That's a hard nope. No wonder the Uchiha clan were insane.
> 
> 4) Apparently when it first activates you're temporarily blinded. Because that's exactly what you want when you've had a shock to the system through an emotionally fueled time, being blinded. I think it may also be implied that if you're an Sharingan user just gaining it for the first time on the battle field that you might just die instead and if you don't see point 1.
> 
> 5) Apparently the Sharingan glows in the dark according to some characters (Kisame to Obito ch 507, p 12 & Obito to Madara ch 602, p 1). Which is like a really bad idea when you're hiding from someone and your eyes are giving you away. Like one way street to dead kind of way.
> 
> 6) According to Itachi in his novel when you use the Sharingan you see in red. Like that is the most confusing colourblind ever and also the best joke ever of "seeing red". Like how did Kakashi juggle seeing just a world of red in one eye and a not world of red in the other?
> 
> 7) While this seems obvious, but also having 1 eye that has the Sharingan is implied to be only half as good as having both eyes containing Sharingan.
> 
> 8) Gaining the tomoe is slow going since people generally start with 1 tomoe or in case of genii, they get 2 tomoe to start off with.
> 
> So those are the reasons why the Sharingan is crap to have. Not to mention the chakra draining that it does when active, particularly to those that are not of Uchiha clan.
> 
> The reasons of why the Sharingan is great is already shown constantly within narutoverse through the manga, anime, and any other thing they push out without me going through the reasons why.


	7. Reflecting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is all about Sakura. I do hope that I do her justice. Also her parents are NOT the anime canon ones since the way she acted I always thought of her as a civilian background type.
> 
> This said I do have a trigger warning for this chapter of, I guess all I can call it, emotional abuse by adults towards children and hints of PTSD. I also forgot the warnings of casual canon abuse from a female to a male and mentions of abortions, which are the most popular form of contraception in Japan and why they're mentioned in the first place with condoms coming in second.
> 
> This was inspired by her canon 12 year old weight of 39.5kg, which may be healthy for a Japanese female child, I don't know since weight/height for Japan seems a bit iffy from what I've been trying to find, but by my Western standards is mind blowing.

Sakura woke up early, heart thumping rapidly with cold sweat covering her body, the images of blood and the smell of sea air were chased away by the smell of her bedroom and the sight of her stuffed toys. It was nice-- her stuffed toys, that was. They were soft and worn down and full of childhood memories. They chased away nightmares, normally. This time the memories of her first C ranked mission managed to catch her in her sleep.

The rest of the night, or rather morning, she could hear the tap dripping in the bathroom, her mum should get someone to get that fixed, and the sounds of the trees rustling outside as her limbs stopped shaking.

She watched the sunrise from her bed.                                                            

It was bright and beautiful, the slow -but so quick, so very quick- change of the dark night changing into pinks and yellows and light blues was, Sakura didn't know how to describe it but she wanted to watch it forever.

Soon enough Sakura could hear movement from within her house.  It started off light; a footstep here and a murmur there but progressed into the sound of a shower going off and birds as the world kept moving.

She knew she should get up and possibly help her mum get breakfast done (because how else could she be a good housewife in the future if she couldn't even cook?) but she didn't feel like moving. She knew she was being a bad daughter but everything was better when she was in bed.

Her stomach rumbled as it demanded food. She was getting better at ignoring the hunger pains, in fact she wouldn't even know if she was hungry if it weren't for her stomach making sounds.

Deciding it was time, she slowly got up and she ran a hand through her hair, she could feel it was in knots, and shuffled over to her wardrobe to set the clothes that she wanted to wear that day, the pink-red dress this time over the pure red dress.

Sakura paused for a second, debating on taking a morning shower or just washing her face before she decided that the shower was probably best for everyone considering she still had sweat clinging to her. Her mum was less likely to ask questions, she loved her mum, she really did, but she didn't want her asking questions.

When she got downstairs she was greeted to the sight of her mother humming a song, probably from the radio, while she cooked breakfast. The smell of toast and fish filled the room, and there was already salad on the table waiting for the family to sit down.  Her father was probably still asleep.

"Good morning!" chirped her mother who was facing the stove, one of her hands using a pair of cooking chopsticks to turn over the fish on the stove.

"Morning." mumbled Sakura, her mum hummed in reply. Sakura knew she should have had been more cheerful in her reply but didn't have the energy to, instead she wandered further into the kitchen.

"Sakura-chan, what's wrong?"

Sakura jumped a bit before getting the bowls and plates from the cupboard bypassing her mother, "It's nothing!"

Her mother turned around and looked at Sakura, Sakura desperately hoped that she didn't know about the nightmares, "Did you take a shower this morning?"

"Oh? Oh yeah," said Sakura absentmindedly as she took down the correct amount of plates and bowls and chopsticks from the correct cupboards.

"Is it the _red time_?" asked her mother. Sakura almost dropped the plates and bowls in her hands, a deep blush graced her face and probably down her neck as well.

"MUM!" shouted Sakura as she got a grip on the plates again. The bowls rocking vicariously before righting themselves making scraping sounds as they did so.

"What? I need to know so I can wash your sheets while you're out being a ninja," said her mum like it was a fact.

Sakura sighed and set the table for breakfast, each thing in the correct place, "I'm not in my red time."

"Just checking! Also remember about the red time-"

"Don't tell dad about it or any other guy because they get weird about it, I know, mum."

"-That's my girl!" cheered her mum as she finished cooking off the fish for breakfast.

Sakura sighed again as she set the table up ready for the perfect breakfast. The tissue box perfectly centred on the table, chopsticks in front of the bowls and the bowls centred on top of the plates. Tea cups just right to the plates and the tea pot near the edge where Sakura and her mum sat. Everything perfect for a new day.

"Sakura-chan, what did I say about sighing?" said her mum, the warning tone telling Sakura everything she needed to know.

"Good girls don't sigh; a good girl is happy, cheerful and ready to start a new day with a smile."

Her mum hummed in agreement as she checked on the rice, "Sakura-chan, could you look after the stove while I get your father up. You know how he's like," tittered her mum and left the stove with a swish of her apron and without Sakura's opinion on the matter, not that it would make much of a difference.

Sakura waited for a few moments while she listened for her mum's footsteps before she sighed and got her cooking apron from where it was hanging, it was pure red with a few sakura blossoms towards the bottom. She had loved it when she first got it a few years ago, had even begged her mother to buy it for her even though it was far too large for her using the excuse that she'd grow into it. It was still too large for her.

She hurried over to the stove when she noticed white smoke coming from a pot, opening the lid she confirmed that it was fresh miso soup, getting a little saucer she tasted it a bit and rolled the taste around her mouth.

The tofu was soft and subtle, the soup wasn't too watery or too thick, and miso was just about ready to be put in; the almost perfect taste of her mum's soup. And at the same time it wasn't.

Sakura stared into the watery depths of the pot, the flavour of the miso soup still on her tongue and watched the soup bubble gently on the stove.

She could only see Wave Country.

The taste of Tsunami's soup was so very different from the soup her own mother made but her stomach still rolled and churned in protest and bile touched the back of her throat. Shaking her head she swallowed, once, twice and three times before she was confident that the bile was safely back in her stomach and not in her throat.

Taking a step back from the pot she took a few deep breathes and shut her eyes tightly, her own mind wishing for her bed. Suppress, Repress, and behave; all the ways a good girl is made.

Suppress. A breath in, and out, the images of blood is gone.

Repress. A breath in, then out, and all thoughts of Wave Country is gone.

Behave. A breath in, a stuttered breath out, and she focused on the pot in front of her.

Taking the ladle tightly she stirred the soup, every part of her still tense but she couldn't calm down and she didn't know why. It was stupid, she was safe at home, far away from Wave Country.

She practically jumped as she heard the heavy footsteps of her dad down the stairs, a counterpoint to her mum's light footsteps. She steadied herself before turning the stove off and continued to stir the soup to make it cool down faster.

"Good morning, my little cherry blossom!" said her dad, practically shouting it. Sakura felt her cheeks warm at the childhood nickname and her shoulders relax at her dad's voice.

"Dad! I'm not a little girl anymore!" protested Sakura, resisting the urge to stamp her foot like a child.

"Nonsense! You're always going to be my little girl, nothing is going to change that."

"Dear, isn't Sakura-chan so cute in that apron? She'll be such a good housewife in the future!" cooed her mum, with her head on her husband's shoulder and arms around his arm, making her dad laugh good naturedly. Like she didn't say it every second day.

They looked so in love, that Sakura hoped that she could be like that with Sasuke someday.

Her mum moved towards the stove while her dad moved towards his seat. Sakura unplugged the rice cooker and brought it over to the kitchen table, Sakura was sure that her mum was getting the fish and the pot from the stove ready to quickly mix in the miso. It was like clockwork; everything was exactly the same, everyday.

"Here, I'll take that," said her dad, his arms coming around the rice cooker to take it and Sakura let him. Her mum always told her that it made her dad feel better about himself if he took the heavy things, sometimes she didn't mind if he took all the heavy work but other times she wished that she could carry it instead, "you're quite strong carrying this all by yourself from the counter to here!" praised her dad.

"Not too strong," said her mum, concerned about her. Sakura collected a separate set of bowls from the cupboard for her mum.

"Now, now, let her have her fun, she just wants to help her big strong dad." said her dad, the joy in his voice almost visible.

"I'm just worried about her future love life, dear. Not all men like strong women."

Her dad smiled and placed the rice cooker next to the tea pot before taking his seat again, "Yes but she's going to be a great ninja. Some guy is going to want to marry her even if she is strong,"

Her mum hummed but didn't argue. Sakura was glad her dad knew how much she wanted to be a great ninja like Senju Tsunade or Sarutobi Biwako.

Sakura brought the first bowl of soup to him, he spoke words of thanks, before getting the next bowl and placing it near her mum's seat and then taking her own bowl of miso soup.

Her mum had brought over the plates of shishamo for all of them. Sakura and her mum sat down in their own seats. Her mum got her dad's empty bowl and filling it with rice and then filling Sakura's own bowl, there was a sizeable difference of rice between her dad's bowl and her bowl. Sakura was also given the smallest shishamo as well.

After her mum was done serving the food they shouted in unison, "Thank you for the meal!" before they started to eat. Sakura's bowl of miso soup was also smaller than the rest as well.

"So what do you have lined up today, dear?" asked her mum, taking small bites of rice so that no rice sticks to her mouth and no movement was wasted. It was so elegant and efficient and polite that Sakura still felt awe at her mum even after all this time.

"Ah! The Yamanaka clan has requested that I get a special type of silk for the heir, you know, Ino-chan, you were quite close to her when you were younger," her father pauses for a moment like he was going to say something but decided not to, "and I'm to meet Yamashiro-san to trade some cloth like this," her dad uses his chopsticks to illustrate what type of pattern he would like in the air.

Her mum giggles politely, with her hand covering her mouth and quite happily, at her dad making him wriggle his eyebrows at her mum. Sakura groans good naturedly as her parents flirt with each other. 

"Let's hope that he has it," said her mum, her dad hummed in agreement, "what about you, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura resisted the urge to jump, she knew that the question was coming, but it was still startling, "Oh, I'm doing chakra training with my team currently. I think we might be doing another D ranked mission today." Sakura made the mistake of looking into her mother's eyes, her warm brown eyes that were darting between Sakura and the salad on the table as a subtle reminder to eat it. Sakura made a great show of getting a small bowl of salad for her diet making her mum smile at her and her dad chuckle at her.

"Still on that diet?" asked her dad, like every other day since she started dieting.

"Of course I am! How else am I meant to get Sasuke-kun to notice me?" said Sakura in an almost whining tone. How Sasuke could still resist her charm she didn't know! She almost got a kiss from him towards the end of her academy days but after that it was like he disliked her but she _knows_ that he does like her so why the confusing signals?

"What weight are you now?" asked her mum, eager to know the details of good gossip and personal achievements.

"Thirty-nine kilograms," her dad made loud gasping sounds and her mum clapped her hands like it was something to celebrate, and it was. Thirty-nine kilograms was nothing to scoff at, though Sakura felt a bit guilty, she lied to her parents, she was really thirty-nine and a half kilograms but she didn't want her mum thinking she was slacking on her dieting. It was just she kept gaining weight even when sticking to the diet.

"I think we should meet this Sasuke-kun of yours soon, you should invite him over so we can properly meet him and I can give him a talk about breaking my pretty little cherry blossom's heart," said her dad, making a blush rise high across Sakura's cheeks.

"Dad!" shouted Sakura, making sure her voice wasn't too loud, as she scolded her dad making both her parents chuckle.

"You really should invite him at some point, maybe later this week at some point if you're really interested in him so we can see if he will be good for you." her mum hummed in agreement.

"Dear, you're going to be late for work. Do you want me to make you a bento?" said her mum, her plate and bowl all finished with only a few grains of rice left over as evidence that she even had anything to eat.

"Yes, please. I love your bento, speaking of which this breakfast was perfect as always especially your miso soup!" her dad's green-blue eyes were alight with a inner glow that Sakura could only name as love and her mum blushed heavily, a beautiful smile on her face. It was like he didn't say that every day.

Sakura looked at her miso soup and brought the bowl to her lips to welcome the taste of her mum's soup. She paused for a second, before letting the soup slide down her throat. It wasn't the taste of the miso soup she had every day during her childhood. There was something missing.

Sakura was startled out of her thoughts by lips brushing past her forehead, her dad's ritual of leaving for the day, and the equally pink hair of her dad brushing against her face before he left, her mum following him to the door for their usual morning rituals.

Everything perfect and everything in its place.

"Sakura-chan, are you okay?" asked her mum as she entered the kitchen again, a small frown on her face and concern shining through her eyes. Sakura wanted to shout that of course there was something wrong, instead she bit her lip and smiled at her mum as cheerful as she could make it.

"Of course I'm alright! I just-" Sakura floundered around for an excuse for a second, "-I'm just nervous about inviting  Sasuke-kun over!" Not that Sasuke was an excuse, now that she was thinking about it how could she invite him over to meet her parents already! They haven't even kissed yet! It was moving way too fast but if she wanted to be Mrs Uchiha...

Her mum clapped her hands, twice, sharply, "That reminds me! I should reward you for doing such a great job on your diet! We should go shopping together for a new lip gloss for you, when are you free?"

Sakura looked at the clock in the kitchen, if she didn't hurry up soon then she'll be late for the team meeting. Though it's not like Kakashi would be there if she was a little bit late... "I'll check with Kakashi-sensei."

"Okay! Let me know by tonight!" chirped her mum, looking excited about going shopping at the markets.

Sakura got up from the table and was about to go up her room but the voice of her mum called out, "Aren't you going to help me clean the table?" Sakura turned around to look at her mum. Her mum had an eyebrow high up and rather unimpressed.

"Well, I'm going to be late if I don't hurry..." said Sakura. Her mum still looked unimpressed as she darted her eyes between the table and Sakura's retreating form. Sakura held back a sigh before deflating, "I guess I have a bit of time to help."

"That's what I thought," said her mum as she started to collect the bowls from the table. Sakura collected the rice cooker from the table to the counter where it usually sat, and placed the left over rice into a container.

"Did you want a bento as well?" asked her mum over the sound of running water and plates hitting each other. Sakura brought over the rest of the bowls and plates to her mum to wash up while she got the tea towel to dry, it was homely and domestic and it made her wonder if she could have this type of life with Sasuke. She could imagine it now, Sasuke coming up from behind to hug her and whisper how much he loves her...

"Huh? No, it's fine."

"Sakura-chan? What's wrong? You're flushed." her mum placed a hand on her forehead to check her temperature. The hand was clammy and faintly wrinkled from the soapy water but dry enough that no water transferred onto her forehead.

"H-huh? Oh, er--I," Sakura had to take a deep breath so she would stop stuttering, her mum looked approving of her stopping to take a breath to calm down, "I was thinking if I could have this type of life with Sasuke-kun."

Her mum giggled, it should be wrong for anyone over the age of twenty to giggle but that was the type of woman her mum was, "Oh Sakura-chan, of course you can have this type of life with Sasuke-kun. Any boy would want you."

Sakura grinned as she dried the plates and bowls, she knew she was still flushed from her daydream, hopefully not just daydreams. Today, today she was going to ask Sasuke to come over for dinner. The sooner the better.

"Yeah, I know. Thanks, mum," Sakura tried to put as much gratitude into her voice as she could, her mum was her biggest supporter: always there with a new tip for makeup or housework to make things easier or to cheer her up about another failed date with Sasuke. She was the best mum ever.

"Oh this reminds me, please sit down,"

Sakura got a pit in her stomach, there was something wrong but she sat down at the table again and her mother at the other side.

"Now I know that your heart is set on being a ninja but we have to discuss when it's," here her mum lowered her tone, "your red time," before going back to her normal sugary tone, "I want you to go natural."

"But mum that would limit what missions I'm able to take!"

Her mum waited until she was silent again, "Yes but what if those pills or seals or whatever those ninja women use effects... If it means that you're not able to have children in the future? It could happen. No man wants a wife that can't give him children,"

Sakura didn't want to miss missions.

But she also wanted to follow what her mum wanted her to do and Sasuke _did_ want to restore his clan, which means having children.

During the female only lessons a year ago the female chūnin, Moriyama, had told them about the different contraceptive options that most kunoichi used and none of them were approved of by civilians. Like her mum.

The doctor that she went to recently said she had more time.

She couldn't-

She will have more time.

Just a bit more to make her decision.

"I just worry about your future," her mum smiled and placed a dried hand on her shoulder, the warmth sinking into Sakura like a hot spring bath, "You better hurry up now or you'll be late."

Sakura looked to the clock and jumped from her seat! Rushing up the stairs to her room, she slowed down to a walk after her mum's remand about running, she mentally made a list of everything she needed: Clothes, headband, pouch, bandages for her pouch, and lip gloss just in case. Doing a mental cheer for herself she rushed out of the door, giving her mum a goodbye hug in the process, to get to the training grounds as fast as she could walk there.

* * *

 

Running to almost their team meeting place Sakura slowed down and panted against a tree, slowly sliding down until she rested on her knees. She was so out of shape. She was also so late but she couldn't let Sasuke see her sweating like a pig, it'll be terrible!

Sakura flapped her clothing gently to get more cool air to reach her skin. Her tights sticking against her legs, clinging far too much and making her legs grow itchy. It was terrible. Looking up through the canopy of the trees to the sky she stared at it thinking over the decisions and made herself more comfortable on the ground.

If she took one of the common contraceptives and her mum finds out then it could damage their relationship.

However if she doesn't take the contraceptives then she'll be taken off of missions, her entire career hindered by not wanting to take contraceptives. She'll be restricted to Konoha based missions. She'll never go anywhere else in the world. Just Haruno Sakura in Konoha for the rest of her life.

It was a no win situation.

Closing her eyes she let the sun's rays hit her face to warm her and placed her hands over her stomach. She had to have more time. It was too soon to think about this but she couldn't not think about it either.

 Maybe in a few years she could go on the contraceptives? Maybe convince her mum that it was the right thing? Who was she kidding? Her mum would never allow her take contraceptives; it wasn't natural. She'd rather Sakura just have abortions like everyone else.

The joys of being a kunoichi born to old fashioned civilians.

There was nothing to it. She'd have to give up her future career to be Mrs Uchiha and she couldn't even tell Sasuke what she was doing because men didn't want to know about that stuff. She wanted to destroy something.

Instead she got up from the ground, brushing off any leaves or pieces of grass on her, and made her way to the meeting place.

Naruto and Sasuke were both at the training grounds when Sakura got there, talking closely about something with Naruto making grand gestures every now and then with Sasuke paying a slight amount of attention.

Sasuke doesn't usually pay attention to Naruto. Just recently he did. When he die-, when he protected Naruto. They became closer using that bond, closer than what Sakura could ever manage.

It made her grit her teeth together but boys were always like that, always closer than what she could manage, always excluding her, always rejecting her to play with them because she was a girl. So she was always told to forgive them, told that it was the way that it was and she could only get past that limit if she was a girlfriend to them or childhood friend. Nothing else.

To be fair she didn't want to be Naruto's girlfriend, adults were always talking about him; about how bad he was and that he was going to make the other children bad by being near him. Being Naruto's girlfriend would be bad but she didn't know how to become Sasuke's girlfriend either.

Every time she thought she got closer to Sasuke he'd close off even more it was like every time she tried to open him up he'd turn around and use her opening to allow Naruto closer. It was frustrating. It made something within her want to punch something; to destroy anything in her path but she _couldn't_ do that.

Unclenching her teeth Sakura shouted, "Good morning Sasuke-kun!" to gain their attention and a wide smile across her face.  Gaining their attention was better than them paying attention to each other.

He just made a cool sounding "hn." sound before looking to look at Naruto again. Her eyes followed, trying to see what Sasuke was looking at before realising it was Naruto, having a crestfallen expression, "oh, and morning Naruto-kun."

Naruto lit up at the sight of her, he always did since last year, and shouted a loud "Morning Sakura-chan!" Sakura gritted her teeth again. Why was it so hard to get Sasuke's attention? How can Naruto do it so easily?

He didn't even deserve Sasuke's attention. He was the last in the class, didn't even show up to half his classes with how he was off pulling pranks of unsuspecting people, and the only real thing going for him was his high class transformations.

She didn't get it.

She was meant to be smart as well but she _doesn't get it_.

"What are you guys talking about?" asked Sakura, somewhat curious and somewhat trying to get closer. She hoped this time she would.

"Ah! This bastard-"

WHAMP!

"OW! Sakura-chan what did you do that for, dattebayo?" cried Naruto from his place on the ground, his hands covering up the spot she hit. From her height advantage she could see the redness slowly rising through his hands. It made her feel guilty because she really didn't mean to keep hitting him, it was just he never seemed to learn when no meant no and when to keep his mouth shut.

"Don't call Sasuke-kun a bastard!" she shouted, it was like there was something black and ugly inside of her that she couldn't get rid of. She promised herself that she wouldn't hit him anymore since she needed to become more lady-like and ladies don't go around hitting people like a drunken brawler. However hitting Naruto never felt so good. It was like all the stress in her just magically went away after she hit him.

She didn't want to be like this. How was it she only did this to Naruto?

She made the mistake of looking at Sasuke. He was minutely twitching but his face was frozen in the usual blank way. It was the face of a guy who didn't want a strong woman. Her mother was right, men didn't like strong women, she was worthless unless she could be more lady-like.

"Sorry," said Sakura meekly. She was, she really was. Every time she promises herself that she wouldn't hit Naruto then she goes and does it anyway.

Naruto stared up at her from the ground, "Hey, Sakura-chan are you okay?"

She opened her mouth to reply as memories of this morning's dream and the conversation with her mother flashed through her mind, "Yes, I'm fine, I'm just _sorry_ ," she smiled as well because everyone felt better when a girl smiles at them. Just keep smiling.

How long did she have with her teammates getting better than her?

Always smiling.

 How long until her own body going to betray her?

Don't let other people see personal matters.

How long was she going to be able to stay in the team?

Pretend that everything is fine and it will be.

"Are you sure?" Naruto asked, slowly getting up from the ground to go near her.

Sakura pushed everything out of her mind, those worries were for later, much later, when she could deal with them in private, "I'm sure, thanks for asking Naruto-kun,"

"No problem! Anything for Sakura-chan, dattebayo!" how Naruto could smile so brightly nobody could know. She hopes he could continue to smile like this at her for a while longer.

She doesn't want to give up this team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated: 20/5/2018.
> 
> Basically everything I said was wrong about the creation of Konoha due to the fact that new villages/cities, which really that is what Konoha is, to do with population and the circle wall. I'd like to thank InARealPickle from fanfiction.net for arguing against the rant. They were right.
> 
> So now today's mini rant/info dump is about the Senju clan.
> 
> The Senju clan are one of the two original clans to build Konoha and the winners of the Warren Era fight with the Uchiha clan. Where they came from is a question but we could probably argue that they came from the West since their ancestors came from that way (Kaguya in Land of Ancestors) but apparently within like 64 years they all died out to 1 person?
> 
> Like damn Konoha, you couldn't be bothered trying to save the Senju last name?
> 
> I'm pretty sure the only reason why Tsunade was able to keep her last name was because she was powerful and lucky enough not to die and she didn't go to the next two Ninja Wars.
> 
> ALSO WHY ISN'T THE SENJU CLAN A NOBLE CLAN IN KONOHA? THEY'RE ONE OF THE STARTING CLANS! THEY ALL COULDN'T HAVE DIED OFF! SOMEONE OTHER THAN TSUNADE AND POSSIBLY NARUTO'S CLAN SHOULD HAVE SENJU BLOOD IN THEM!
> 
> There should be people running around in Konoha that had Senju blood within them, anyone, and not every Senju would have been a ninja or died a ninja? Sure not everyone would be running around with the Mokuton since that seems to be more of a Hashirama descendant type of thing.
> 
> WE. JUST. DON'T. KNOW. IF. THERE. ARE. MORE. SENJU. BLOODED. PEOPLE.
> 
> Like goddamn.
> 
> Also one of my editors pointed out that technically the Uzumaki clan is now a branch clan of the Hyuuga thanks to Naruto marrying Hinata, which amused me greatly.


	8. Planning choice of attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Kakashi actually has to do his job and Temari gets a shot in the limelight along with Suna too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably warnings of parental abuse, more towards emotional abuse and attempted emotional abuse than physical though my beta reader did say that it came off to him as either physical or sexual abuse. So it depends on how you look at it. So the warning is here.
> 
> Oh yes, the context of a woman asking if she could make miso soup for the rest of her life is her asking a man if she could be his wife.  
> Also when I talk about Moon Country within the fanfic I'm referring to the Land of the Moon, one of them.
> 
> I am sorry for the late chapter. It was ready a month ago but never got to posting it from the lack of access to my computer. It's been busy.

"YOU'RE LATE!" rang across the training ground as his cute little students shouted the words, it was like music to his ears.

"Mah, mah, you see there was a group of travellers from Moon Country that got lost on the way to their inn and couldn't find their way so I helped them to their inn only to find out that they were missing a member of their group who ventured into the forest around here. I looked for her in the forest where a pack of wild wolves had gotten her cornered so I bravely took them down and rescued the poor maiden from certain death and brought her back to her group where she asked me if she could make me miso for breakfast for the rest of her life. How could I refuse?" That may or may have not been a plot to an Icha Icha knock off. The look on his little genins' faces was worth it though. Deadpan all across the board.

"THAT'S A LIE! EVEN IF IT WAS TRUE THEN IT WOULDN'T TAKE YOU THREE HOURS TO GET HERE!" shouted Sakura, she had a very big set of lungs on her. She'd be a good distraction.

"I'm not three hours late." His cute little genin team looked confused, it was like teaching a puppy not to chew on the table legs. Too bad Pakkun said not to bring anymore pups into the group.

Sakura looked at the position of the sun then back to him.

"You told us to meet you at 9am since you were giving us a sleep in. It's noon, that's three hours." He was so proud of her using her logic like this, if she retires then she would definitely have a seat on the council. With some physical or ninjutsu power behind her not many would argue against her in the council.

"I'm two hours and fifty minutes late."

"HOW'S THAT ANY BETTER?"

"It's not three hours, so your facts are wrong." Sakura made a face. She better make sure to keep note of the facts especially if she encounters a Nara on the council that argues against her. He was really helping her future and if her shouting and screaming made Sasuke pull faces ever so slightly well, it was a minor benefit.

"Kakashi-sensei, Kakashi-sensei, do you have a mission for us? Like another C ranked? Or rescuing a princess from bandits?" Naruto looked so eager, Kakashi had to resist petting him on the head and giving him ramen as a treat.

"Nothing like that, we might get a D ranked later but for now I'd like to confirm that you all can reach the top of these trees then we'll do other chakra exercises."

"What's there to confirm?" asked Sasuke, back to being broody. Not healthy that, Kakashi would know.

"Well the trees that you trained on most likely had minimal chakra within them."

"Trees have chakra?"

Smack! Naruto whined as he rubbed his head from where Sakura had smacked him upside the head, perhaps a bit more gentle than usual. That's an interesting development. Personally he was a bit tempted to do that as well, didn't Naruto learn anything from the academy?

"All living things have chakra, right Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura glanced over towards him as if she needed to confirm what he just said. Kakashi just nodded in reply. She'll need to be trained out of that. For now it was okay and cute if not a little scary but later it would be a liability.

His dogs would have a field day with his students and it would be so cute to have his dogs and students together, maybe he needed a camera to blackmail them with later on in life.

"So the trees here should have more chakra?" asked Sakura. Sasuke might be his favourite source of humour and Naruto a constant reminder of everything that he's done wrong in his life but Sakura, Sakura was his favourite due to her potential. So much potential to be murder happy and do things in life, and live too. Living is important to having a future.

"The trees in and around Konoha have quite a fair bit of chakra within them due to the first Hokage, which makes them harder to walk on since they are bound to try and kick back if you lose concentration for even a bit, this is called Hashirama's Vengeance. This makes it harder for foreign ninja to try and tree walk around Konoha. We make older and important buildings out of the wood from these trees in case of invasions. It might be a small difference but an important one when the wood rebounds on you and you're fighting on a wall or tree."

"So...it's difficult to walk on these trees?" asked Sakura, he send her a warm one eyed smile towards her.

"Yes but also helps for fine chakra control. This is why we have some of the best mednin in the world."

"So why don't foreign ninja just take a few of the seeds from Konoha?" asked Sasuke, suddenly interested in trees. Predictable, probably wants to use them to train. Kakashi really did need to slip him some Icha Icha at some point so he could learn things like team bonding and relationships.

"Well, they just don't grow outside of Konoha and her forests. Nobody can figure out why, I mean  we had a whole team of botanists and chakra sensors to try and figure out why back a few years ago, and as far as anyone can tell it's simply because Hashirama-sama."

"Because Hashirama-sama?"  asked Sasuke dubiously, Kakashi nodded seriously in return and his team all looked so unconvinced. It's a pity they thought that it was a lie. The second Hokage had a whole diary dedicated to the stupid things his brother did that simply ended up saying 'because Nii-sama', which later became the saying 'because Hashirama-sama' when dealing with anything odd in Konoha.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Go walk on these trees." ordered Kakashi, privately he was hoping that Sakura would show up the boys again.

"Ha! I bet I could do this faster than you can, bastard!" shouted Naruto as he shot off to the nearest tree and stepping onto it like it was the simplest thing in the world.

There was a large boom that triggered his fight or flight senses making him pull out a kunai and have his sharingan out within milliseconds. It was enough to capture and register the fact that Naruto went flying across the field, his face in shock, before he jumped to capture his wayward student just before he hit another tree.

He took stock of his other students, Sakura was shaking a bit while Sasuke had completely froze, while he held a shaken up Naruto in his arms. There didn't seem to be an attack, his eyes looking towards everything, though no doubt that the noise would have attracted other ninja to their area.

Safe. It wasn't an attack. Just a bad reaction.

Kakashi carefully placed Naruto back on the ground, patting him off of invisible dust and dirt. Faintly he remembered to lower his headband back down again and to put away his kunai.

"Right! So as Naruto-kun just demonstrated these trees don't like it when you put in too much chakra into each step, if you put in too much chakra at any given time this will happen." If Kakashi lied about that last part who was going to tell him off? He hadn't seen a reaction like that from the trees ever.

Was it because they sensed he had the Kyuubi or was it because he put way too much chakra into his foot? Kakashi tried not to panic. If it was the former then it will be unlikely that he would be able to tree walk within or around Konoha however if it was the later then it wouldn't be too bad and would help him with his chakra control.

The only way to find out would be to have Naruto to keep doing it but that could mean that Naruto will get seriously hurt in a way that said the Hokage will have to step in and question why and he didn't want any of his students taken away from him, he just got them.

This will probably mean he was on Naruto catching duty until they find out the cause.

His students looked terrified at the thought of having to walk on these trees.

"It's fine, think of it as another trial that all Konoha ninja need to go through. It's an untold rite of passage." They didn't look any more convinced so he walked up the tree that Naruto tried, there wasn't even a mark of Naruto's shoes in the tree where normal trees would have from too much chakra, and walked up the tree slowly to show them it was fine. They looked a bit more convinced after that.

Good old physical reassurance. He'll have to train them out of that soon.

From about fifty metres away Kakashi could feel the insistent chakra flares of ANBU asking for his status and whether or not it was an attack. It was a bit of a pain trying to do chakra flares on the actual trees while not making it noticeable to his team but all ANBU had to be trained for it. The buildings that were made from the wood of these trees had a duller reaction and were far less likely to kick back than the alive ones but they did make for excellent fire traps so that enemies couldn't have access to their documents.

Slowly Sasuke went towards a tree first but it's Sakura who actually walks up her tree, right next to Sasuke's tree. One step, two step, a faint wavering of doubt within her but she held steady and climbed up with little to no trouble. She even did a little cheer at the end and called Sasuke over to her before she realises how high she was and wilted a bit. He has such high hopes for her, and not just because she's at the top of a tree. So Wave Country wasn't a fluke; good.

Sasuke, of course, ignored her and tried walking up his tree. He hit half way before the tree kicked him back much more gently than it did to Naruto, the usual response from the trees. Speaking of which Kakashi had to make the tree kick him off so he could be able to reach Naruto in time because the cute little student that he is decided to walk up the tree again and got kicked off in his way again.

It was like playing fetch with the tree with Naruto as the ball. The things he does for his students.

"Sakura-chan, I've now got another chakra exercise for you if you would come down." Sakura look startled at being addressed but carefully got back down the tree again, she didn't know yet but walking slower downwards made people look weird and caused the blood cells to react to gravity while going faster might have a small blood rush at the bottom of the tree but you suffer less for it. She will learn in time that sometimes it is better to just jump into things or in her case just jump down from the tree.

Sasuke glared at her when she walked passed her that made her wilt even faster than the heights. He really should do something about that, he wanted at least one of his students on the council so he could blackmail them and it wasn't like Sasuke or Naruto were council material.

He watches as Naruto goes another round with the trees and it does seem like he is better at not being kicked back as much, in fact he now makes it three quarters of the way across the field now so it must be just how much chakra he puts into his steps. That was good. Very good in fact, it can be fixed by training him with these trees more.

Sakura waits patiently by his side as he watches his other students carefully and now just lets Naruto hit the ground instead of the trees where he was going to get hit and be seriously injured. He might have also become a human ball if he accidentally tried to land with his chakra against the tree.

"Okay, Sakura-chan, I want you to grab a few leaves from the trees here and keep them glued to your forehead with your chakra. The leaves might try and float away if you put too much chakra into them so if that happens get another leaf from the tree. It works best with fresh leaves and I want you to do it in the clearing over." Kakashi lowered his voice to just above a whisper so Sasuke couldn't listen in. Sasuke had a nasty habit of trying to learn more than he should be allowed to, not from him luckily but his records did mention him trying to sneak into the more forbidden parts of the public library to have a look at more ninjutsu.

Just so Sakura would be safe he sent a shadow clone after her as well, just to keep watch from the tree line and always out of sight. Best to not let his cute little students know that he liked them more than he showed otherwise he'd roll over for them and nobody wanted that.

Kakashi walked up another tree and stood there watching, he also took out his beloved Icha Icha Paradise book because it was going to be a long wait until both his boys got to the tops of their trees.

He was right, it took five hours of him playing fetch with Naruto and reading alternatively before Naruto slowly make his way up the tree while Sasuke got it in three hours however Sasuke looked winded and on the edge of chakra exhaustion while Naruto looked like he could go for another twenty rounds before he looked that winded.

Kakashi called over Sakura from where she was training, his clone had yet to disperse yet since he didn't gain any new memories, while his two male students gathered around him.

"Right, before I dismiss you, each morning until I say stop I want you to train using these trees before you meet up for the team meetings in the usual place. Sakura-chan you do the other chakra control as well since you have shown you can proficiently walk up these trees without trouble. Naruto-kun if you're able to I also want you to climb these trees after the team meetings where I'll supervise just in case you get that reaction again. Sasuke-kun, you do the morning training only. You're on the normal route for this type of training." Naruto grumbled while Sasuke click his tongue. There was no doubt the boy was going to try and sneak in more training.

"I also want to tell you that in two days time you'll all be doing different training. Sasuke-kun you're with Yūhi Kurenai-san from Team Eight. Sakura-chan you've got self-training since I believe that you're capable of training yourself and Naruto-kun you're going with another team as well."

"What-wait! Why are we getting separated?" asked Sakura as she scrambled to get answers.

"It's for training purposes, since not every team will stay the same and for different missions you'll get different people depending on what mission you'll be on. I wouldn't be surprised if other students from different teams get temporarily accepted into our own to see how well we work together," while this wasn't the actual reason of why they were being separated, it was a convenient excuse to use.

"Wait! What team will I be on then?" asked Naruto. As much as Kakashi didn't want to say the team because it was the mock mission if he didn't say a team then it would look suspicious to Sakura and Sasuke.

"A team found out about your...time in the marketplace and decided that they want to try you out as well, I think they've just lost a third team member so you'll fit in nicely," this time he was just lying plain out, why was it that when he told the truth his cute little genin don't believe him but when he was lying they do? What kind of survival instincts was that?

"Naruto-kun, you'll stay behind starting today since you still get kicked from the trees. Sasuke-kun go home and sleep off your minor chakra exhaustion. Sakura-chan, I want you to do the same." Sakura was slightly swaying on her feet and held it together. It made him feel like a job well done.

"But what about Naruto-kun?" asked Sakura, blinking blurrily and her eyes were almost unfocused, there were even leaves in her hair that she must have had missed. Small reserves but very good control, like most civilian background kunoichi. She has time to grow.

"Does Naruto-kun look like he has chakra exhaustion?" Kakashi even made a small gesture with his hand towards Naruto who was basically bouncing on his feet and looking around. Kakashi had obviously lost his attention.

Sakura shook her head before trying to get a half hearted date with Sasuke but yawned part way through it and just said goodbye to everyone afterwards. Sasuke looked like there was a god in the world.

"You know if you get chakra exhaustion, Sakura-chan might want to try and make you get better? Maybe even coming over to your house," Kakashi lazily said out aloud and from the almost horrified face that Sasuke pulled it was worth it but the excited face that Naruto made said that it wasn't worth it at all because tomorrow he was going to have a chakra exhausted Naruto instead.

Well, at least it was a good way to tell how much chakra he had.

Kakashi waited until he couldn't feel Sasuke or Sakura's chakra anymore before he paid his full attention on Naruto who was getting kicked back again and again from the trees but slowly getting higher on the trees. His natural reserves were far beyond genin or even chūnin level but that was probably to be expected from the legendary Uzumaki line. A true powerhouse. He'd be good for the front lines with Sasuke and Sakura as support.

"Naruto-kun," Naruto turned to face Kakashi and stayed on the tree for a few seconds before getting kicked, Kakashi waited until he had Naruto's full attention again, "I sent in a mission request to the Hokage about the mock mission that was proposed. He has accepted it and in two days Yamanaka-san and I will be taking care of your training for about a week before you go on the mock mission. I don't want you telling Sasuke-kun or Sakura-chan about this mission. If they ask then use the fake team that I mentioned as a cover,"

"Why can't I tell them?" whined Naruto, "They're my teammates! Teammates are meant to share things!" Kakashi nodded sagely, like he totally agreed with Naruto and while he was glad Naruto took in what he was saying he chose the wrong way to interpret it.

"That's true however sometimes missions call for the person doing them not to tell anyone around them even teammates. It's good practice in case you are chosen for such missions. We'll tell Sasuke-kun and Sakura-chan after the mock mission is done."

Kakashi knew that when you go on mock missions you can actually tell your teammates to let them know what field you were going to be specialising in if they hadn't figured out already however this was just easier to not let Sasuke and Sakura know until the mock mission had finished.

Knowing Sasuke he'd want to try and get a mock mission because Naruto had the mock mission and Sakura would want to do it as well because Sasuke was doing it and they all couldn't have mock missions because mock missions were a pain to set up since you had to have the teacher bring it up with two recommendations of jōnin or higher and the teacher couldn't be the one to suggest it either. One day Naruto will appreciate what it takes to get him a mock mission.

"Okay, but only until I've finished the mission, right?" Kakashi nodded and wondered if he should leave a clone at the training grounds while he could take it easy for a bit. It was probably easier if he did, that way he had actual time to plan what exactly he needed to do to get Naruto to the point where he needed to be. Hopefully the minor blackmail would be useful and Kakashi could get the final exam for Naruto that he wanted.

"Yes! I'm going to pass that mock mission! Then I can rub it in that bastard's face!" He really shouldn't be condoning Naruto's attitude but it was funny as hell watching the boy while he riled up everyone around him and it's not like he'll actually let anyone truly harm Naruto. He'd never forgive himself, might even be the point of no return.

"Okay, I want for you to try walking up the tree for another hour before I'll dismiss you." Naruto nodded and raced towards the tree that kept kicking him back. He even made it half way up the tree this time before it blasted him about half way across the clearing.

Kakashi sighed before creating an earth clone to handle Naruto as he leaned against a tree and watched Naruto practice, occasionally reading his favourite passages from Icha Icha Paradise. He got lost in the tale of Jiiro and Princess Tsuko's love story threatened by the villain Otsuki, a prince from a foreign land who wanted Princess Tsuko's kingdom for himself.

It was quite interesting for the characterisations although very poor naming skills considering Jiiro was Jiraiya and Princess Tsuko was Tsunade while Otsuki was Orochimaru. He could only hope that the sequel would have better naming skills. Though Kakashi did wonder if the raunchy sex scene on page one hundred and five was actually real though.

Looking up from his book after a while he checked the sky and his internal body clock, "Time's up, it's been an hour." Naruto nodded as he collapsed onto the ground in a boneless flop like his body wasn't able to stand anymore, he also looked winded as he grinned to the sky.

"I did well didn't I? Soon I'll pass that bastard running up these trees!" Kakashi hummed in response and listened to Naruto's vaguely coarse laugh echo around the clearing.

"Time to get up." Naruto whined before shakily lifting himself up with great effort, his jacket was dirty and there was dirt and leaves in his hair but he was grinning like a job well done. Students were cute and lucky for Kakashi he only had to raise them from the ages of twelve to sixteen so he didn't have to do anything but give them the kunai and the shuriken talk later on.

"You better get some rest for tomorrow and make sure you do the training in the morning as well." Kakashi was starting to feel like Orochimaru with all this nagging and wasn't that a terrifying thought to have? Maybe there was something in the water?

"I will! Bye, Kakashi-sensei!" shouted Naruto as he started to run back home and waved to him. Kakashi lazily waved back, not too sure if Naruto could see him waving back. How did Naruto have so much energy?

Now he had blackmail to plan while not being called a traitor of the state. It was going to be fun.

* * *

 

She heard rumours that another one of her old classmates was going to a coastal town. She heard it was due to the low amount of work that he was finding. She even tried to make her father give more work to her ex-classmates whenever he came home but there wasn't enough.

They were getting long term missions thanks to archaeologists and historians up around where Rōran was and some border work where they didn't touch Rain or River but they were losing jobs fast and were forced to raise the price as well.

For a while they tried to do cheaper work but it didn't generate enough money to sustain the village so now the village was slowly dying and they couldn't do anything about it apart from what was going to happen. Had been for years. Her graduating class had been ten while Kankurō's had been eight.

Baki, her jōnin teacher knocked on her father's door, before entering. Vile was at the back of her throat and nerves littered her stomach. She was meant to be the reason they were going to get jobs back and she failed.

 _She failed_.

The Kazekage, her father, looked at their group. He was deceptively casual behind his desk. There were no guards near him but there was traces of gold dust around. Her brother was trying to keep as far away from the jinchūriki as possible while looking like a cohesive unit while her other brother was staring into the distance, twitching ever so slightly. It was unnerving.

"Report."

Baki stepped up and it was better him than her, "It was a failure, the Daimyō's son didn't fall for Temari. The information that we had was wrong, apparently the Daimyō's son is more interested in older women than younger women. Despite that Temari did try to seduce him to the best of her ability and she tried to seduce the Daimyō's nephew as well but he didn't go for her either,"

There it was. The spoken words of her failure. She tried so hard to try and seduce one of the Daimyō's relatives and it didn't god damn work. It was the last chance and she blew it. She blew it sky high like a damn sand tornado travelling across the desert. Now they were going to go to war because of her.

And the worst thing about it was the nobles treated her like a non clan hick from a nomad community. That had really hurt her pride.

If only herself or Kankurō had inherited the Kazekage's kekkei genkai. Maybe the Daimyō would take their village more seriously if they had a proper heir rather than an unstable jinchūriki. Even a no name magnet user with mixed heritage would have been better.

"Very well. You may all leave. Temari, you _stay_ ," stated the Kazekage. He looked displeased but he always looked displeased nowadays. He was in charge of a failing village after all.

Crap. Kankurō gave her a distressed look and placed a hand on her shoulder while Baki gave her an apologetic glance before they walked away. Steeling herself she waited until the Kazekage was ready to talk. His room had the classic Suna windows that she'd known all her life, faintly curved. She wanted to do something, anything but she stopped herself at the last moment. She was a kunoichi of Suna, damnit, she was better trained than that.

"You don't have any excuses?" asked the Kazekage. He was slowly coming over to her. Was he going to kill her? Temari bit a part of her cheek. It wasn't even her fault that those stupid nobles didn't want her!

If the Kazekage really wanted to succeed he would have had gotten one of her married cousins to go instead if he wanted one of the nobles to have a damn mistress.

"No, I failed my mission, most of all I failed my village," said Temari trying to keep the bitterness from her voice. Maybe he would make her try and kill Gaara as a punishment, what a way to go; Kazekage ordered suicide via filicide.

"Yes, you did fail. However you did try hard at your job," the Kazekage placed a hand on her shoulder, the same shoulder that Kankurō had touched, and faintly squeezed it, "I had hoped that you did succeed but the faulty information is not your fault, you'll just have to try hard during the chūnin exams so that everything goes well," his eyes were intense on her. It was similar eyes to the demon within her brother; cold and driven. Same eyes that sentenced her mother to death and the same eyes that came up with the plan.

Right. The plan. It was practically suicide for the village but it was still better than letting the village die out by itself without trying anything.

"I will," stated Temari. She was _not_ going to let them down this time. It was her village and it was her responsibility as oldest child of the Kazekage, and the only one to take their inheritance seriously, to take care of them if they didn't have an heir so she was going to do her damn job.

"Your mother would be proud of your determination," she flinched slightly at that sentence causing her to break character and she had been doing so well.

Damn it, damn it, damn it, DAMNIT!

SHE WAS A DAMN KUNOICHI!

SHE SHOULD ACT LIKE ONE! NOT LIKE A DAMN CIVILIAN CHILD!

Her father smiled in cold satisfaction. He didn't talk about her mother ever since she died. Not even in passing! So why now?

"You look so much like her," he paused for a second to grip her shoulder with a tight squeeze before letting off gently, "She too, would have wanted this all to happen," he trailed off before slowly brushing his hand over her shoulder while wearing a smile that didn't reach his eyes before dismissing her.

He forgot that she wasn't a child and could now see that he didn't care about them.

Pursing her lips she left. He didn't get to talk about her mother like that! He let her die! He encouraged it! Then her uncle as well!

She felt like she had to go and forget that she had a father, it'd probably be easier than it should considering that her father was the leader of her village. Her mother would have wanted the plan to take place too? In what country-- no, in what _world_ would her mother want to have them attack Konoha in a last ditch effort?!

She noticed Baki was hanging around the end of the corridor casually waiting for her, just before she actually past him. Now she was slipping! What if it was her other brother hanging around instead? What use was she to the village if she was dead? Would Kankurō lead the village? _Would the Gaara do it instead_ if her killed her?

He gave her a quick look before reaching out to brush his hand over her shoulder, the same one her brother and father had touched, and rubbed his fingers together before showing her his hand.

On his fingers was a faint glittering; gold dust.

Fear crawled its way up from her stomach. The Kazekage put that on her. _He_ put that on her. She shot a panicked look at Baki. Was it a warning? Was it a test? Was she going to be found in a dune with jackals and birds picking at her body?

_Was she going to be forgotten in the desert with nobody to care?_

Baki looked at her with narrowed eyes and cocked his head to the right before slowly shaking his head. He placed a finger that didn't have the gold dust to his lips in a signal to keep quiet.

Alright. Alright. They were going to carry on. They were going to pretend this never happened and they were going to go to war. Right.

Taking in a deep breath Temari walked out of the Kazekage's building to train. They needed everything they could get for this insane plan and she was _not_ going to the reason they failed nor was she going to die.

She had to be alive for her village; she'll rest when she's dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to rant about this time because the main source of my problems is mainly chakra, the way it works, and what is a timeline?
> 
> So this time I'm going to go a bit more political, in which I'm going to talk about the Daimyo of each country and what does the Kage of each country do.
> 
> So traditionally in Japanese history a Daimyo was like the equivalent of a Kage irl with the Emperor of Japan having the role of Damiyo (from Narutoverse).
> 
> So with this we could either conclude that there is a Emperor of all the countries and that each country is actually a county/state that the Daimyo is in charge of with the Kage being like a general while the Daimyo also has the role of a Field Marshall, one step above a General. The Daimyo could actually be an Emperor under a different name either due to Narutoverse historical connotations, since we know that Emperors exist in Narutoverse, or a trend or something that happened before the Warring Era. This would mean that the real title of Kage is Daimyo.
> 
> Both of these theories have implications for Narutoverse.
> 
> Theory 1: There is a Emperor in charge of at least 1 of the big 5 countries if not all of them meaning that the Daimyo are actually Daimyo.
> 
> If there was a Emperor in charge of the Daimyo then the way that the Daimyo interact with each otherr makes sense in that each of them were trying to get resources for their county/state and gain political influence with the Emperor with the Hidden Ninja Wars happening.
> 
> However this would make a question of where does this illusive Emperor live and how much of the land does he own? Does he spread out to Rock Country? To Demon Country? To the Land of the Moon (see above)? Where does it end and how much power does he actually have? And why, if this is the case, are the counties/states called countries?
> 
> This means that the Kage have less political power than what they actually have and if 1 Kage along with their village acts out against the system then 4 other Kage would be told to take them out by the higher ups. Not that they would consider to rebel since Japan loves their Imperial family and want to keep them alive.
> 
> However this would be an explanation for Boruto and how Naruto hadn't changed much to do with the Shinobi system.
> 
>  
> 
> Theory 2: Daimyo are Emperors and Kage are Daimyo but under a different name.
> 
> If this is the case then the Kage having more political power than what they would get in theory 1. This would mean each country is actually a country over a county/state and that if a country was defeated then the way the people live would change in either a large way or small way depending on what country defeats them or takes them over.
> 
> This also means that the punishment for the Kage if they authorise the military without permission would be less greater to the village than theory 1. This is because the country would still need their military more than in theory 1 where there would be more than 1 military so only the Kage would be punished in this theory.
> 
> It also makes sense considering that countries like Land of the Moon, where it has a separate royal family, would be safer than in theory 1 where they would be in fear of being taken over.
> 
> However the fact that they had Emperors and the Daimyo don't use the word would probably hint to the fact that historical connotations from before the Warring Era, and before the beginning of the villages, were involved and each ruler of the big 5 prefers to be called Daimyo as well.
> 
> So either theory could be true while also depending upon the political climate of the Emperor or the Daimyo, whichever one is in charge of the country. There could be a point where both theories were true, where there was an Emperor in charge of the countries but something happened to them and then the Daimyo came into power.
> 
> In conclusion I have no goddamned clue and I wish more people in the fandom would talk about it so I can get a better clue of what other people think about this.


	9. Lone Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just causal trauma shown by Sasuke in this fic. Also when Lady Shijimi says "this one" and others like that she's referring to herself. My beta reader pointed out that he was very confused about her speech pattern and didn't realise that she was talking about her self like that. I just figured that a noble woman, probably akin to a empress, wouldn't be talking about herself as "I" or "my" or even in third person like "Shijimi". Hence "this one".

Kiba was wary of Sasuke. Not because of his whole brooding act or his massive amount of fan girls --who even needed that many fan girls anyway?-- but because he was like an exploding tag. He always looked like he was two seconds from going off in the middle of Konoha with little warning and was going to take out everyone around him. Kiba couldn't see how nobody else was seeing this or if they were how were they not treating him? How did Kurenai not see this?

Lone wolves always die.

His mother would never stand for it if he was with their clan.

It was a fact of life and just like a lone wolf Sasuke was going to get any team he is on killed or abandon them for whatever brooding exploding tag cause he was on.

Like now, Sasuke was apparently going to be on their team for like a week or something and Kurenai went to make him feel welcome, being extra nice to him, and Hinata was behind Kurenai like a blind pup clinging to the comfort of their mum while Shino and himself stayed back to see what would happen.

He barely acknowledged their teacher! Instead he looked away from her sneering faintly with arms crossed.

It wasn't right. Ninjas don't usually go on solo missions unless it was in ANBU or a suicidal mission, which was basically the same, and even then they had a team of people in the same situation. They had an alpha that they listened to and they respected that person to keep them safe. Sasuke had to know this, it was practically repeated in their academy days along with the village is everything.

Akamaru softly growled at Sasuke from the top of Kiba's head, not enough to draw anyone else's attention but enough to let him know what Akamaru thought about this as well. This wasn't good. If this continues on then it could affect everyone that Sasuke works with in the future and considering that ninjas in similar age ranges generally get placed on a team together or age balanced teams then there was a high possibility that he was going to be placed with Sasuke again in the future.

Kiba twitched when he felt something moving on his hand, there should be nothing on his hand but there it was. He kept still, waiting. He felt the things moving- no, it was vibrating on his hand to spell something; Ke-i-ko-ku. Warning.

He looked over to Shino, his body language still focused on Kurenai trying to talk to Sasuke and Sasuke ignoring everything around him like he thought it was below him to even see them. Even when Kurenai finally got Hinata out of her shell to talk to him for a bit.

Kiba had known Shino for a long time, since before he even went to the academy. His older sister used to take him to the Aburame clan lands to get the spare dogs groomed by their bugs, which Shino used to help with. Kiba knew that even when not focused that Shino was aware of everything around him. Almost quite literally as well considering his bugs could tell him everything around him for a good couple of metres and probably soon for kilometres.

"Oi! Asshole-!"

"Kiba-kun -don't call names-" injected Hinata, pursing her lips before trying again, no doubt mentally scolding herself for skipping words, "Kiba-kun, please don't call Sasuke-kun names. It isn't nice," the sentence was said quickly like she was rushing to get all it all out of her so she wouldn't have to say it again and that nobody would pay attention to her.

"I call it like I see it! Besides he was being mean to you back, I see no reason why I shouldn't call him names if he's acting like he's so above us," Akamaru made a sharp yipping sound in agreement.

"I don't see why I should be talking to an Inuzuka and a Hyūga that can't speak properly," there was something terrible in the way that Sasuke responded to insults. It wasn't like Naruto, how every insult or name calling was treated as if expected, it was more like Sasuke seemed to thrive on insulting people; like he needed to treat people like trash to fulfil a quota.

Like he needed it to be able to survive.

In the academy days it wasn't any of his business, he had hoped that being on a team with others would slightly help him but instead Sasuke went on a team with Naruto, who expects insults and cold attitudes for whatever reason, and Sakura, who is like his number one fan and didn't seem to get that Sasuke was a terrible idea for a crush. Both of whom seemed to encourage this attitude, it made for the worst team ever.

"Kiba, Sasuke-kun, stop that. I don't want to hear any name calling from you again, do you hear me?" scolded Kurenai. Her red eyes drilling holes into his head. He can already hear the scolding she'd give him if Sasuke wasn't here.

"Yes Kurenai-sensei," said Kiba dully. Akamaru whined as well in apology. There was a pause as everyone waited for Sasuke to say something but he didn't.

"Sasuke-kun, did you hear me?" repeated Kurenai, her lips thinning and her radiating annoyance.

"Yes, Kurenai-sensei," muttered Sasuke. Kurenai sighed, no doubt going to pull him to the side later on and scold him, before signalling them to follow her so she could teach in their usual way but the disrespect that he gave her...

He was going to be the death of someone and Kiba was unsure if Sasuke would even accept that the death would be his fault. It was worrying and scary and made Kiba want to jump Sasuke on his back and force him to recognise where he's going wrong and make him fix himself but he doubts that Sasuke would respond the way he wants him to if he did.

"Akamaru, give message that we need to get Sasuke-kun half way to acceptable within the week," whispered Kiba, practically mouthing it knowing that Akamaru would be able to hear his commands and send a message to Shino.

Hinata looked over to him questioningly before he nudged his head towards Shino and waited for her to slowly nod back. Shino would fill her in after. If this works he'll have bragging rights for the rest of his life, if it doesn't it probably won't hurt Sasuke any further than what he already is.

Akamaru barked three times to let Kiba know that the message had been sent. Kiba waited for Shino's bugs to return to give him the reply, he was practically bouncing out of his skin waiting.

He felt the vibrating on his hand again and had to stop himself from jumping up in surprise.

A circle.

Kiba grinned. Shino was on board for this self imposed mission. Heck. Yes.

Time to get this lone wolf back into the pack.

* * *

When Sasuke met Kurenai it felt like he was back when his family was still alive. He could see his mother in her, his father, his aunt, his uncle, his grandmother and grandfather too, he could see his brother in her. She had the Uchiha cheeks and hair. She had the Uchiha eyes.

She almost had the Uchiha eyes. Her eyes were red enough to qualify to be an Uchiha but she didn't have the tomoe and nor could she activate the Sharingan. But she looked like an Uchiha in all the important ways. He didn't like looking at her for too long. It didn't help that she specialised in genjutsu much like his family had. The only thing to make it worse is if she also used fire jutsu.

His new _teammates_ weren't too bad apart from the Inuzuka boy on the team. Sasuke was proud that he probably was the strongest out of all of them, seeing that he was an Uchiha and trained on his taijutsu. The Aburame heir was quiet and didn't cause trouble but the Hyūga heir stuttered whenever she talked.

It was annoying and whenever he made the responses that he got away with in his own team or mocked her he got yelled at by the Inuzuka boy and scolded by Kurenai. It was stupid, she wasn't even worth being the Hyūga heir if she wasn't confident enough; if she couldn't handle being a leader. Her family had options of leaders unlike his own.

 Still, he knew that he wasn't welcome. Their team was cohesive. They protected the Hyūga heir. They had actual team work. It _worked_. It irked him to see that a team _could_ work while they protected their weaker member. At least the Hyūga heir was more useful than Sakura. Sakura couldn't do anything really.

"Mushi-01 in position."

"Inu-02 in position."

"Taka-03 in position."

"Usagi-04, I can see the target. Usagi-04 to Mushi-01, move 5 metres North-west-north."

"Understood. Mushi-01, moving."

"What about me?" He was going to chew that stupid dog out. That stupid dog and his mutt, didn't he know how rare it was to be able to use the intercom system? He better have not stuffed this up for Sasuke.

"Ki- um, Inu-02, Usagi-04 to Inu-02, do not move. Usagi to Taka-03, oh, um, Usagi _-04_ to Taka-03, do you have a visual?" Sasuke briefly thought about not answering but decided against it so he didn't need to hear about a half an hour long scolding from a woman who looked like she could be his sister if he had one. He really didn't want that because it usually leads to what if Itachi had been born a girl type of situations when he tuned her out.

"Taka-03, confirmed. Target is now being tracked." Sasuke ignored the heavy breathing coming from the other side of his earpiece.

"Usagi-04 to Mushi-01, distract it." The Aburame heir better keep the target distracted unlike the 2 other times they had to track it down. At least this was easier with an actual team for tracking rather than his own, as he has now come to realise. How come he didn't realise that each of the genin teams that graduated had been for different specialities before?

"Mushi-01, I've sent a decoy." Sasuke watched the target seemingly be sniffing around the forest, like it wasn't prepared to bolt at a single notice. The target was a lot craftier that it looked. Sasuke thinks he saw a wisp of a chakra from somewhere near the target but he wasn't sure.

"Mushi-01, decoy has been successful." Sasuke released a breath he didn't know that he was holding.

"Usagi to Inu-02, proceed." There was a slight sound coming from the south-east of Sasuke but it was enough to make the target bolt again.

"Taka-03, target on the move! Heading North-east-east! In pursuit!" shouted Sasuke as he ran after that damned cat.

Again.

"Inu-02, in pursuit!" As much as it pained Sasuke to admit it, the Inuzuka boy was probably faster than he was, by like a tiny bit, but he was coming in fast. A lot faster than Sasuke was chasing after the damned cat.

"Akamaru! Let's go!" There was an answering bark as two miniature wind storms went past Sasuke getting to the target much faster than he ever could. Sasuke watched as one of the wind storms tackled the target to the ground where a fierce fight erupted between a cat and a dog. The Inuzuka boy whooped and hollered at the scene egging his mutt on as it tried to not damage the target that much.

"Kiba-kun, please make Akamaru-kun stop. Shino-kun is here for extraction," said Hinata coming out from the cover. Inuzuka looked saddened by his latest entertainment being disrupted but waited for Aburame to come by before calling off his mutt with a whistle. As soon as the mutt was gone the target tried to get away but soon found itself running on air and howling like the Shinigami was on its tail thanks to Aburame's bugs.

The Aburame's bugs have always slightly freaked Sasuke out. There was something about them that just sent warning signals off in his head and where did he even keep the bugs anyway?

"Kurenai-sensei, we've completely our mission!" Sasuke could hear the sound rattling around in his brain thanks to Inuzuka shouting into his microphone. Sasuke could see thanks to his Sharingan that even Aburame winced at the volume.

"Kiba-kun, I can hear you. You don't need to be so loud into the microphone, and please don't damage your teammate's hearing. I don't want Hiashi-sama or Shibi-sama to come knocking at my door because you've deafened your teammates," If Sasuke's father had been alive then he'd already be knocking at Kurenai and Inuzuka's doors for the sheer unprofessionalism. If he was alive.

Kurenai stepped out from the shadows, practically melting into existence. It disturbed Sasuke to think that she was watching them the whole time. What if that man was doing the same? Nobody would ever know.

None of the others seemed disturbed that she was watching. Just like that it hit him. The Hyūga heir could probably see the chakra flow while the Aburame heir could probably use his bugs to sense their teacher out and the Inuzuka could probably smell her out.

Chills went up and down his spine; they knew she was there the whole time.

Only he was the one who couldn't see it.

He couldn't sense like the others could.

Even though the Hyūga heir was a waste of space she could see what he couldn't.

She was better than him in that aspect. What else was he missing? _What else_?

He needed to get better; stronger.

"Good job everyone! Hinata, you need to remember to say the numbers when it comes to the code names and that the mission doesn't end until you get to the missions office. Kiba, don't try and deafen your teammates. Shino, you need more presence when it comes to your teammates, not all teams are going to be able to accommodate you. Sasuke-kun, you're the same as Shino, you need more communication with your team." Criticisms, when was the last time he got a criticism by a teacher? He couldn't remember. Maybe just after the incident. 

"With that said, come on everyone, let's turn in this mission," Kurenai's lips curled into a fond smile, her lips curled with just _this_ type of Uchiha smile. Sasuke could see it within her. He wanted to curled up and die.

"Aww _yes_! Hey, Akamaru, we might be able to get that good meat from Tenchi-san now!" There was an answering bark as the mutt climbed up its master like an awkward monkey while the Inuzuka tried to ease the mutt's way to his head.

"Kiba-kun, slow down. There is no hurry; everything goes at its own pace." That had to be the most Sasuke has heard from the Aburame heir. It was really strange hearing the Aburame heir's voice, it was clear, flat and toneless like someone decided that it wasn't worth their effort to try and talk. His jacket didn't muffle anything.

Inuzuka just laughed and ran up to the Aburame heir, "You talk like an old man!" Sasuke could see the flecks of spit coming out of the Inuzuka's mouth. The Aburame heir did an odd shoulder thing that sent the Inuzuka into a fit of laughter. "Are you sure you're not an old man underneath your jacket?"

"I am not."

"That's not a proper answer," singed the Inuzuka boy, his canines just jutting over his lips as he grinned to show the world what he was; an animal.

"Okay boys, that's enough," said Kurenai, her voice stern but her lips still curled into the fond Uchiha smile. He couldn't stand it. He walked faster so he could be at the front of the group, where he belonged.

There were footsteps slowly making their way to him making him tense without realising it. Annoyed at his body's reactions he forced himself to relax. He didn't want to make friends with anyone on this team. They were strange, and cohesive, and made him think of things he wanted left alone.

"Sasuke-kun..." said Hinata as she caught up to him. Sasuke glanced at her from the corner of his eye. Out of everyone from Team Eight, she was probably the best to try and talk at him; beneath his notice and didn't make him think of things he didn't want to. He waited for her to go on but she seemed content just walking next to him and he didn't push for her to talk, the quiet was good.

They walked like that the entire way to the Hokage's office, with Sasuke and the Hyūga heir at the front, the Inuzuka boy and the Aburame heir in the middle, who was using his bugs to carry the howling terror that was a cat, and Kurenai at the back. The only noise was the Inuzuka boy shouting and taunting the Aburame heir, only paused by Kurenai's scolding.

The Hyūga heir didn't say anything but let them walk in silence. It was completely new for Sasuke. Most of the time girls wanted to talk to him and find out all of his favourite things. Maybe the Hyūga heir wasn't absolutely terrible after all. A rival clan heir but not terrible.

Kurenai knocked on the door to the mission office, the door was a thick wooden door that looked unusually smooth and a single brass handle. Usually Kakashi just went straight through the door with the rest of his team following rather than knocking.

There was muffled talking and the door was opened to them by one of the chūnin inside, they found they weren't the only ones in the mission office. Sasuke held back a frown as he saw who was inside. The Yamanaka heir - _call me Ino-chan, is it alright if I call you Sasuke-kun?_ \- and the Akimichi heir were inside along with the slacker heir, who managed to have both better and worse scores than Naruto.

"Ah, Kurenai-chan, I see that you've completed another mission," the Hokage had a smile that said he was amused by the turn of events while Iruka had been staring at Sasuke with a faint grimace before looking away again. Sasuke tensed waiting for a verbal attack. Last Sasuke checked he parted with Iruka neutrally and hasn't heard since from the other man. Did he hear about him punching Naruto? That was probably it. Sasuke relaxed again now knowing the reason for Iruka's dislike of him.

"Hinata-chan!" shouted the Yamanaka heir, running up to the Hyūga heir and hugging her. Sasuke didn't know that they were on good terms. Perhaps there was a lot to the other people around him that he didn't know like long lost family members and clan interactions.

"Ino-chan," said the Hyūga heir warmly as she returned the hug. The Inuzuka boy looked amused by this all like there was something funny about the whole situation rather than two girls being friendly with each other, something which Sasuke hasn't seen in a while. The Aburame heir just look frozen or tense, Sasuke didn't know which one. He didn't think he wanted to know.

 "Kurenai-san," greeted the other team leader. He had a goatee and a bandana covering his hair, standing proud and firm though Sasuke could see that the man was a little uncomfortable in his current situation.

Kurenai licked her lips before greeting the man with an "Asuma-san," and turned her attention to the front of the room, "Hokage-sama, we're here to report in the D ranked mission that you gave us this morning."

"Very well, we'll get someone to summon Shijimi-sama so she can accept her cat back," there was a pause as every ninja in the room turned to stare at the cat being held in the air by the Aburame heir's bugs before they pretended that moment never happened.

"Hey! Asuma-sensei, can we stay here before we have to go? I really want to catch up with Hinata-chan! Please?" whined the Yamanaka heir as she bounced over to her teacher. Her teacher rubbed his goatee with a brief, relaxed look over to Kurenai.

"If it's not too much trouble for Kurenai-san?" his voice was a smooth drawl and now that Sasuke had been in the room with him for more than a couple of minutes he could smell the scent of tobacco on him. His father always told him that tobacco was a terrible habit to have, an enemy ninja could smell it for miles away and it always lingered no matter what. Sasuke disliked the man already.

 "Of course not, we'll be more than happy to have you stay," said Kurenai, her voice still fond and her smile was still that Uchiha smile. Sasuke scoffed. "Sasuke-kun, don't be rude," her voice was still fond but with a hint of steel that reminded him of his mother. She didn't even look at him while saying that! Sasuke clicked his tongue but didn't say anything else and instead chose to turn his head.

"Ah! Sasuke-kun!" cooed the Yamanaka heir as she tried to attach herself onto his left arm. Looks like she was done being the Hyūga heir's friend and now moved onto being her true self again. Sasuke tried to discreetly remove her from his arm before accepting that it was probably a lost cause and the only way out was to cut his arm off.

 "I missed you so much! Did you miss me?" the Yamanaka heir was fluttering her eyes in a way that a young girl would think of as cute or something but really just looked like she had dirt in her eyes and was trying to remove it without actually touching her eyes. Sasuke didn't actually know what to say.

If he was too harsh he was going to be accused of being heartless, then Kurenai is going to scold him and so would the Inuzuka boy and probably the Hyūga heir as well since she seems to be close to the Yamanaka heir and it was going to be a mess. However if he said anything remotely nice then he was going to be stuck with her on his arm for the rest of the day or more.

So he said nothing.

And because he said nothing the Yamanaka heir just kept going on and on about dates and fashion and everything he didn't care about or want to know about. He should have had just said something terrible because now his ear was just going to have the Yamanaka heir's voice ringing in it for a while.

He also thinks that the Inuzuka boy was also laughing at him. Next time they spar he's going to kick his ass into the ground for laughing at him.

"I didn't know you were adopting stray genin now," said the man, Asuma, as he walked closer to Kurenai. His eyes only looking at her and his tone teasing. His shoulders weren't as tense as before and were slowly relaxing more and more the longer he talked to Kurenai. The closer he got to Kurenai the tenser Sasuke got though.

Kurenai laughed, her hand covering her mouth, and her eyes crinkling in delight, "There are many things you don't know about me now, however Sasuke-kun is just on my team for the next couple of weeks. Kakashi-san had asked me to take care of him," Sasuke didn't like the dismissive way Kurenai spoke about him, like he wasn't going to come back and check up on her. It was his right as the next Uchiha clan head to be able to check up on fam- people, people who belonged to the clan, no matter how distant they were.

"Kakashi-san, huh?" murmured Asuma. His tone was odd with too much bitterness for it to be normal but not enough bitterness for Sasuke to actually get concerned about. It wasn't to the levels of his bitterness over his brother after all.

"Oh come off of it, he only bought Anko-san and myself a few drinks in exchange before leaving," He was handed off to Kurenai for a few drinks?! HE was worth a few drinks of alcohol?!

"Only a few? If I had known that I would have exchanged a few for my own students,"

"ASUMA-SENSEI!" shouted Ino, coincidentally right in his ear, as she held a fist up in a threatening manner. The man just laughed it off however. Sasuke wished dearly he could shout at the guy to give back his hearing.

"It was a joke, a joke. Please don't hurt me," his words were serious but his tone was joking as he held his hands up in surrender. Inuzuka started to laugh again and the Aburame heir's eyebrows grew closer together at this. At least he wasn't the only unhappy person in the room.

"I hope that it was a joke! It would be pretty poor of you to scatter us like that!" scolded Ino as she clung even harder -onto his arm. He wished he had the foresight to know when he was able to get his arm back. He wanted to do training after this.

There was a beat of silence as everyone remembered _why_ Sasuke was in the room in the first place.

The Hokage cleared his throat and smiled at everyone. It reminded him of when he saw the Hokage in person for the first time. Sasuke had remembered that the Hokage had cleared his throat in that exact same way in the hospital room before telling him of the news back then.

"I believe that Shijimi-sama is here now," announced the Hokage, his smile still warm but his tone with a touch of reprimand, and like that the 2 teams separated into their own groups. Ino had left his arm to go to the side with her teacher and teammates while the Aburame heir nudged the Inuzuka boy to get the cat. Kurenai stood tall and serious, any trace of her humour gone.

 Was this what it was like for other teams to meet their clients? He always thought that their way was the way you were meant to greet clients and hand in missions. It was a shock to the system really. Even the Inuzuka's grumbling seemed more subdued.

There was a knock on the door and one of the attendants off to the side quickly ran to the door to open it. Lady Shijimi was a portly woman that carried around all her wealth for show. She didn't walk so much as she waddled into the room, her eyes only on her cat being held by the Inuzuka.

"Oh this one's dear Tora-chan, you poor thing, you must be so frightened by this boy and this boy, aren't you this one's dear? Oh, release her at once!" Lady Shijimi had a low and husky voice that didn't seem to match her appearance and Sasuke was rather grateful for that. He kept expecting a high pitch screeching voice whenever he saw her and kept forgetting that it wasn't actually the case.

With a little nudge from Kurenai's foot Inuzuka released the cat into Lady Shijimi's care, allowing her to hug the creature half to death and then a bit more while Inuzuka winced constantly. Probably imagining what would have happened to his mutt as well.

"Yes, this is this one's dear Tora-chan, why this one has been worried about you, what if you had died or been captured by bandits? So very worried, you have this one's favour Hiruzen-san,"

"As always, I am glad to have it. Is your son doing well?"

"This one's child is doing very well, the Fire daimyō has wished for him to be married soon, this one is organising which lady is to be this one's son's wife, it is exciting for all the household, of course you are invited as well, as the witness to the many great events in this one's son's life. Why, even Himejima-san's daughter is on the list so soon there might be a merge of families to keep the line strong," Sasuke didn't actually know about the state politics, apart from the Fujiwara family but that's because they married into the clan and they were family in the loosest sense of the word. Perhaps he should write to their head soon.

"It will be an honour to go to his wedding then," the Hokage gestured to one of the attendants off to the side, not the one that opened the door, to collect Lady Shijimi's money.  Lady Shijima smiled, it wasn't a pleasant looking smile as she wasn't what you would think of as beautiful but it was sincere and held goodwill to the people within the room, which is more than what you can expect from a noble.

 "What an old man I've become, from seeing the Fire daimyō's son being born to now being able to see him get married. I can only hope that I get to see more weddings in the future,"

"It is the Will of the Fire that humbles all and ensures that all live a long and prosperous life. Surely you would agree with this one?"

"Of course, however I'd never thought that I'd live this long to see it happen," said the Third smiling like he didn't just say he didn't expect to live this long. In front of two genin teams and a bunch of attendants at that.

Lady Shijimi waited for the Hokage to bow to her, it sent a feeling of grit along Sasuke's teeth, before leaving by an attendant opening the door for her. Sasuke always thought that it was a disgrace to bow down to nobles like they were some trained monkeys and not ninja that could easily end their lives if they wished to.

Asuma sighed before making a show of looking around the room, "Hey, after this would you like to have lunch together?" Sasuke sent the man a filthy glare, "I meant for our teams, it will be nice to treat the lot of them together just this once, right?" Sasuke gave him an even filthier glare. In the background he think he heard the clanging of money changing hands near the table at the front and bated breaths.

Kurenai looked at her team and Sasuke before turning back to Asuma, "Well if it's for the sake of our teams then sure; they did a good job today," Sasuke would have had liked to protest that catching that hell cat wasn't something to be congratulated about, now more training on the other hand would be a reward.

However it wasn't up to him, now was it?

Sasuke refused to drag his feet like a toddler but it was sorely tempting with the way the two teachers were walking next to each other and Ino going from clinging to his arm chatting away about their first date and how jealous Sakura would be to going back to the Hyūga and talking to her. Sasuke growled a warning -and wouldn't his father be rolling around in his grave if he ever saw Sasuke act like a Inuzuka- making Ino back off and walk back to her team.

Eventually he was able to be by himself.

"um...Sasuke-kun?" the Hyūga heir glanced back at the 2 teams who were a good couple of metres away now following their teachers as they walked away talking closely together, "Did you want to join? Us, I mean! You'd rather be training, I mean I know you'd rather be training but are you wanting- er...do you want to join us for lunch?" the Hyūga girl had an odd way of speaking, it was fast and trying to push everything out all at once but at other times it was slow and filled with um or er and pauses to fill in when she was thinking but unsure of what she was saying.

Looking back at the two teams it was a happy scene. Everyone laughing or comfortable with each other even when they were arguing. It made him want to say no, he was never comfortable in crowds like that.

Sasuke huffed but continued to walk next to the Hyūga heir, it would be rude to refuse the free food. Besides the Hyūga heir wasn't so bad for a girl that came from his year group, sure she was odd but she didn't cling to him so that was alright.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad on this team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually forgot to give this chapter to my beta reader. I was waiting and waiting and waiting until I finally spoke to him about it was going to post up chapter 8 again then realised my mistake. OTL
> 
> So this rant is about chakra again. More specifically chakra in relation to memories.
> 
> So we know that chakra contains memories or rather the spiritual side of chakra contains memories. Our examples are Orochimaru when he does his body transfer jutsu, because how else would Orochimaru know that they were Orochimaru and before you say that the Yamanaka clan do something similar, they unlike Orochimaru keep their body there and use their chakra to look into another's mind and control another being, but also Kurama, the 9 tails, could be an example as well. And if you want to go far enough the zombie resurrection jutsu (yes, I know that isn't the proper name for it) that Orochimaru uses could also count.
> 
> Why I say that chakra contains memories is because we know that chakra is comprised of spiritual and physical energy, however when you take away that physical energy you're only left with spiritual energy. We know that changing bodies doesn't effect memories. How do we know this? Orochimaru and their techniques. To a lesser extent you could probably count Kurama as well since he changes hosts though you might not count Kurama as they don't really rely on their hosts for the physical aspect of their chakra.
> 
> So when Orochimaru uses their techniques be it their body transfer jutsu (the first time) or their zombie resurrection jutsu the original body is no longer available. We don't know what happened to Orochimaru's original body but I'm going to take a guess and say it's dead but Orochimaru and every zombie that was summoned for the 4th War remembers who they were and what they were. So we can only speculate that the spiritual side of chakra, the soul as it would be, contains the memories over the body, which is why the mind swapping or zombie summoning jutsu work. If they didn't work that way then Orochimaru would have had been dead a long time ago leaving only their soul, with no memories, merged with a body that was rapidly dying due to the invasion of a foreign soul. 
> 
> Because Kishimoto's way of using chakra is fascinating but at the same time god I hate Kishimoto for everything about Narutoverse. Why couldn't he have explored his background more so I didn't need to come up with theories about damn chakra as if I was doing a uni degree on the stuff.


	10. Unfolding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Girl meets boy. And boy. And girl. Girl gets kidnapped by overly friendly people and an asshole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Vague hints of parental abuse and emotional abuse.
> 
> On the trade off we have Sakura meeting Team Gai in all of their glory! I'm very excited about this development since we're slowly getting on with the plot.

The Konoha Library was a marvel of all public libraries; it was free, it had a ninja section, and it was always stocked up with the latest books. Unfortunately the 'newest' books only ever seemed to be porn, socio-political books of other countries, or satires and while it was free to borrow books if you were a single day late, like Sakura found out, then they charge you your entire pay and then some.

That day wasn't very good for Sakura.

The actual ninja section was only available to chūnin or higher. Which Sakura was not. Not for the lack of trying but she wasn't great at all the physical stuff like taijutsu and anyone can learn things from books.

But the library was still a marvel to be inside. It was very clean and looked nice and neat with various different spaces for people to read in. Sakura liked the library. She really did. It was a wealth of information that you could just absorb and none of the books would ever judge you. Also you can judge authors without them knowing like this one author, Jiraiya, his work was all really derivative and unoriginal. He also placed a lot of emphasis on the females in the books, especially large breasted ones. Breasts that large are just so unnatural and possibly not add so much emphasis on women in his socio-political books.

Overall books were great and so was the library.

It was also kind of boring to be inside after the first three hours. It didn't matter if you liked the library or not, it still got boring after a while. With a low groan, that her mother would be ashamed to hear from Sakura, she stretched until she could hear her back crack and pop.

Frankly Sakura didn't know what self study really meant, sure she had her chakra training but she could only do so much of it within a day and she didn't know what else to do.

Back in the academy self study meant two things; one: Naruto had gotten into trouble again so it was time to stare wishfully at Sasuke, or two: they had assigned book homework that Sakura wanted to get out of the way so she could do other things with her time after school like learn a new recipe from her mother.

In exactly no way did this apply to her current predicament, well apart from the Naruto had gotten in trouble again part. Sakura felt like that was going to be a constant for Naruto, no matter what. Actually Sakura couldn't believe that Naruto had a criminal past, no wait, she _could_. She could believe that Naruto had a criminal past but she didn't _want_ to. Naruto was a goofball who did stupid pranks that Sakura sometimes thought were funny, not a person who was a _criminal_.

And sometimes he was a good guy...

Sighing Sakura started to put the books and scrolls that she had collected away. She didn't want to think that her teammate was a criminal or that Sasuke had punched him so hard he went flying into a tree or that Naruto was a criminal. It was all insanity.

It was all insanity and she was the only one that apparently thought that it was insane.

So what did that say about her that she still liked to be around them?

Insanity.

Looking over the title _The Gritty Man and his Sand_ by Arisu Kobayashi -like who even calls their child Arisu using the kanji for ant and opening doors?- or even _Sweet from Rain_ by Tsumuri Kata, Sakura thought that maybe she was insane as well for even choosing those titles in the first place but Sakura had always had a fondness for socio-political dramas and books.

 _Sweet from Rain_ was especially interesting with the way it told of Hanzō the Salamander's rise to power and his continued rise in power.  Sakura just made sure to skip over the raunchy parts but other than that it was great! It also made her slightly scared of him, to imagine a guy like him around the Third Hokage's age and still so powerful that Rain Country could still be gathering power!

Unfortunately none of those socio-political books would help her training, it's not like she's going to see Suna or Ame people any time soon so it probably wasn't worth reading about Hanzō the Salamander or Reto the greedy. Still interesting but not useful.

And wasn't that the story of her life?

Sakura wished that she could read the books in the ninja section to gain more knowledge on what she was supposed to do but the ninja on duty looked kind of intimidating and really muscular so it really was for the best that she didn't head that way.

She didn't really have a plan for the rest of the day. Her mother was busy with her circle of friends catching up on the latest gossip and she was supposed to be training so there was no luck there. She didn't want her mother to think that it was alright to take Sakura out of training whenever to help her but would it be so terrible to catch her mother for lunch?

Oh but she might run into Mrs Nakama. She really didn't want to, the woman was weird, as weird as the Aburame boy in her academy class only without the bugs, glasses or coat. So nothing at all like the Aburame boy but Mrs Nakama still gave off that weird feeling. So it was a no to getting her mother to have lunch with her. She missed having lunch with her mother during her younger years in the academy when parents could take their children home for lunch. It was a really fun time.

Maybe she could have lunch with Sasuke...

It wasn't that weird that another teammate would invite their own teammate for lunch, Naruto did it all the time, and she did hear rumours that Sasuke was on the Hyūga heir's team for this week. The Hyūga heir was a weird girl but not Mrs Nakama weird, she was painfully shy and would stutter all the time. If she was skinnier and more confident then Sakura would have some real competition for Sasuke's love from her. She also pretended that she didn't have a crush on Sasuke as well by pretending that she had a crush on Naruto but what girl in their class doesn't have a crush on Sasuke?  

* * *

 

With her mind made up Sakura went to the nearest convenience store, she could try and make lunch for Sasuke at home and then bring it to him but it was almost lunch time and she didn't want to get there late. What if the Hyūga heir made her move then?

Collecting as much onigiri in as many possible flavours as possible, she hesitated between an anpan or a yakisoba bun as she tried to recall if she could ever remember Sasuke eating either of those. Her mind came in a full blank. She could only remember seeing him eat salads, rice and the occasional pork dish that interchanges with chicken dishes.

That information doesn't help her at all!

She grabbed the anpan since she think she remembered seeing Mrs Nakama's child, Noa, giving Sasuke a yakisoba bun on love day - who gives a yakisoba on love day anyway? Wasn't it traditional to give them chocolate on that day? - and ran to the counter where she spent the last part of her money from the Wave Mission. It was stupid to even think about that mission any more. So she was definitely going to put it out of her mind.

While walking briskly - definitely not running, ladies didn't run - with her plastic bag flying behind her she mentally calculated to where she thought Sasuke might be and making sure that if she was wrong she'll have enough time to search the other area that she thought they might be. She didn't have enough time. She might need to walk even faster to get to that area within acceptable parameters. Her father liked to use that phrase a lot; within acceptable parameters, especially when trying to make a deal with someone.

Maybe she could also find Naruto and they could all have lunch together and they could talk about what they were doing and god, how pathetic was she that it has been like two days already and she was desperate to see her teammates? Sasuke more than Naruto but she wouldn't _mind_ seeing Naruto since it's been two days.

Has she always been this clingy?

Shaking her head, she mentally calculated the optimal route to get to where she thought Sasuke might be and if she found Naruto, wherever he might be, all the better.

The thought that Sasuke might be on a mission popped up --

BOOMPH

\-- but she'll burn that bridge when she gets there.

But also ouch.

Sakura had ~~ran~~ walked briskly into someone and hit the ground. It felt like she had been hit by a cart, she was pretty sure her arse wasn't meant to feel that way either.

"I'm so sorry! Please forgive me! I didn't mean to run into you! To apologise I'll do one hundred laps around Konoha!" said an overly cheerful voice.

"Lee, you don't need to apologise to her. If she can't see your clothing then she must either be blind or daydreaming," the amount of condescending you could find in that voice could bury Konoha, it was smug and stupid and grated on Sakura's nerves.

Shuffling around on the ground to check that she could still feel everything she stared at the... person(?) that she ran into. It was exactly like the type of situation her mother warned her about, a strange male -- what are _those_ eyebrows? Shouted something within her -- who she ran into without thinking and now she was stuck by social obligation to apologise to him.   

Once she got her bearings around her she slowly got up and dusted herself off, "No, I was thinking and didn't realise my surroundings-"

"Well that much is obvious with the way you ran into Lee," Sakura stared at the other male, she wanted to glare but he - she knew she was staring but he - he was _so_ handsome! His pupil- less eyes were a little creepy but he was really handsome like he was cut from the same cloth as Sasuke! His skin was unblemished and his eyes were sharp with his lips leaning towards one side as if ready to smirk at his competition.

It was a shame about his personality but he was so handsome, not as handsome as Sasuke, her heart wasn't fickle enough to change the object of her affections but... actually she might know who this person was.

"Wait! I know you, you were in the year above me... Hyūga Neji-senpai wasn't it?" Hyūga made a huff of noise before turning his full attention to his companion. Just the two of them side by side was a massive difference, a boy in skin tight -- oh god it was skin tight, why? OH by the gods why? -- and terrible eyebrows with a handsome boy with pupil- less eyes. It only managed to highlight the comparison.

"As expected of my rival! Even the young delicate blossoms of Konoha know who you are! I am Konoha's beautiful wild green beast, Lee Rock! May I know the name of the beautiful flower I see before me?" It was like someone got a weirder version of Naruto and kept it on loud constantly. Was that bandages wrapped around his hands? On both of them?

Sakura resisted the urge to groom her hair and preen, even though it was a weird person that had complimented her, a compliment was still appreciated all the same especially given how Sasuke didn't give her any compliments. She knew he was shy about romance, most boys were but it couldn't hurt to give her a compliment every once in a while.

"I'm Haruno Sakura, it's nice to meet you two," Sakura smiled instead of bowing, it probably wasn't the most polite thing to do but she didn't want to bow to them.

Lee shouted a noise that could only be described as "ARUH!", startling her and it didn't miss her notice that Hyūga didn't even flinch from the noise but instead tuned it out with long ease of practice, "A beautiful name for a beautiful youthful blossom of Konoha! Please! Sakura-chan do me the honour of being my girlfriend! I don't think I could find a more beautiful woman than you!"

"WhAT!" shouted Sakura, a blush heavy on her cheeks, "No! I mean, I can't! I like someone else!" WHAT KIND OF GUY ASKS A GIRL HE DOESN'T KNOW OUT? Shouldn't he know her interests? Her passions? How well she can cook? How well she can throw a kunai?

"Lee-kun! Stop that at once!" shouted a female from a shop nearby, "Can't you wait ten minutes while I check out the prices for tags here without causing a scene?"

"Ah! Tenten! Do you not see that she is the most beautiful blossom you've ever seen?"  'Tenten' looked ordinary with brown hair held in buns and unpatterned clothing leaving the forehead protector to stand out as she made her way out of the shop to where the trio were gathered in a hurry. She also didn't look impressed.

"Lee-kun, you can't just ask a girl out like that; it's not romantic, it's not nice and it's rather scary. Besides asking someone out is meant to be a private thing anyway! You don't just ask people out in the middle of a street with your teammate standing there," Tenten then turned to Hyūga like a bloodhound finding its fox, "and you! Why didn't you stop him?" Hyūga shrugged, "No! You don't get to shrug like that! I left you with Lee-kun so he wouldn't do things like this, why didn't you stop him?"

"I didn't see that it was his fate for me to stop him from being turned down by a girl," Sakura stared at the trio like a noon time drama; she couldn't look away. Was this what other people saw when her team was together?

"That isn't fate! It being fate would be him meeting this girl, not you not stopping him from making a scene and probably making this girl feel awkward, that's just you being a jerk to your teammate." when Hyūga shrugged again she ran a hand down her face, groaning and pulling her faces all the way until she perked back up again.

"I'm sorry about him, my name's Kuku Tenten, nice to meet you. I really am sorry about them,"

"Oh! No it's fine, I was just... surprised was all. My name is Haruno Sakura," Tenten looked around as if searching for something and looked quite puzzled.

"Where are your teammates? Shouldn't they also be here?" asked Kuku with Lee nodding in the background.

"My group have been split up for the week. I'm on self training," Sakura made sweeping and pointless arm gestures as if to show that it was just herself here, only her. It made her remember she was still carrying her plastic bag of possibly ruined lunch and that she was ten minutes late from her schedule now.

Bubbles of panic flittered around her stomach before she took in a breath. Gripping the bag tightly in her hand she didn't know what to do, go find Sasuke to have lunch or stay with this trio thanks to social obligations? Suppress, repress, behave, all the ways a housewife is made.

A good housewife wouldn't be impolite, they would stay here and carry out their social obligations, she can always find Sasuke later. There was always later, Sasuke was in love with her after all.

"Huh. So what have you been doing for self training?" asked Kuku, her eyes curious and Sakura really didn't want to tell her that she has been hiding in the library reading her favourite types of books and pretending that she wasn't wallowing in self-pity about her entire life but in particular about the last few days and how she has no time.

"Oh, er, I've been doing chakra exercises but I really should be going now..." she hoped by making it look like she was busier than normal that they'd leave her alone.

"What kind of chakra exercises?" there was a light from within Kuku's eyes as she stared Sakura down. It was more than a little intense and frankly scary. Kuku seemed like the most normal in her team but considering everything that didn't mean much...

"Oh, er, I've been doing tree walking and placing leaves on my forehead while walking around. Every hour or so both at the same time," It was hard to brag while not sounding like you were bragging but Sakura was a master at it. She was the best in her team to do with chakra control after all!

"Hey! I remember doing that, you must be fresh from the academy, right? The new batch would be around a few weeks out from the academy?"

It turns out there were other ways to destroy an ego like being referred to as a few weeks fresh genin instead of a couple of months fresh genin because of the way that you've been training.

"...no, I'm from the previous batch from a few months ago."

"But the chakra training techniques...oh gods I'm so sorry!"

"Whatever happened to being nice to kouhai?" drawled Hyūga, a smirk on his face. It made Sakura want to punch him in a Naruto type of way. Just a light punch to the head to teach him a lesson. Possibly with more punches following.

Whipping around Kuku hissed at Hyūga, "Would it kill you to be nice?" before turning back to Sakura. She gently placed her hand on Sakura's inner elbow, "Hey, I'm really sorry about that, it's just chakra techniques are generally the first things genin learn, and well -- I'm sorry,"

"No, it's - it's fine. Really," It wasn't fine. Knowing that even if she was the best at chakra control on her team wasn't much if her team was behind on every other genin team.

"Do you... want any help with the whole -" Kuku made a circular gesture with both hands which could mean anything really, "chakra training?" Kuku was quite warm.

"Just stop already, Tenten, you're only digging yourself a deeper hole," Hyūga wasn't even looking at his team anymore. He was just looking around pretending that he didn't know anyone. Sakura wished that she didn't feel the same as that asshole.

"Neji-kun! I'm trying to be _nice_!"

"I agree with Tenten! It would be a wonderful idea to help the youth of Konoha bloom into beautiful flowers! It is our right, nay, our duty to help them!"

"Tenten, look what you've done," scolded Hyūga, his mocking tone ringing true.

"I know, I know, I already regret it." muttered Kuku. They were all a very intense type of team. Sakura hadn't thought of other teams much before. Her team was normal to her but this -- this was _different_. It was all shouting and sarcasm and rudeness. It was friendliness that bordered on insulting. It was cohesiveness in the way that her team wasn't. They included everyone. She was barely good enough.

"Are you serious about helping me?" she didn't recognise her voice. She didn't recognise any of her right now. She wanted something --  to be better? Their help? She didn't know...she could feel her eyes watering. A proper housewife didn't cry. Only happy emotions. Discreetly trying to hide her watering eyes she gave a large smile instead.

 Maybe she could find it if she trained with these people.

"Of course, Sakura-chan! I'm a man of my word and if I can't do this to help you then I shall do fifty laps around Konoha doing back flips!"

"Please, please, Lee-kun, I beg you to stop being weird about Haruno-chan," Kuku turned back to Sakura, eyes warm and grin wide, "but yeah, I'm serious. We girls have to stick together, right? Otherwise we'll just get swept up within the system,"

"Don't expect her to learn that much in however amount of time she's on self training for nor do I expect her to retain what she knows either. It's not like her destiny will change because of this."

"Neji! Don't say such things! Everyone's destiny can be changed by hard work and training!" Lee pulled a pose that cocked his hip to the side and gave a thumbs up. It was so weird. The rest of his team looked disgusted, with Hyūga making a scoffing sound and Kuku pulling a pained face, distorting her features from normal to exaggerated. It was kind of funny like a comedy routine from TV.

And she was so weird for wanting to train with them.

"Come on, let's get you to Gai-sensei. Oh and Haruno-chan, you can call me Tenten,"

"Yeah... you can call me Sakura then,"

* * *

 

Don't let anything get to her. Don't ask questions. Don't answer personal questions. Give compliments. Be modest receiving compliments. Be there but be quiet. Be happy and don't show anyone anything but happiness. That was everything that she was told. How to be the perfect housewife. But nothing told her how to be the perfect kunoichi.

So maybe they could teach her.

**She wanted to be more.**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have a fun fact or rant for this chapter. It was part of the reason why I didn't update for so long.
> 
> But now that I think about it, god I hate the Byakugan.
> 
> HOW DOES IT WORK????????????
> 
> Jake says that it works like a scanner that can see through walls, people, and wallets that the wielder can selective choose to look at what they want to see but from what I gather from looking at it is that it just senses chakra and if something doesn't have chakra then it doesn't pick it up where the wielder also has no control over what they see but that makes no sense (because I'm assuming their money isn't made out of chakra or chakra absorbing paper/metal) when Hinata used it to look through Naruto's wallet on their date. 
> 
> I hate it.
> 
> Seeing through walls because walls don't have chakra unless purposely placed I get because they sense trees since natural features like trees and water (I am assuming) have natural chakra. Before Jake told me about how Hinata did that on her date with Naruto I had always assumed that I was right but nooooooooooooo, Kishimoto and the animation studio just had to show her do that.
> 
> BUT SEEING THROUGH A WALLET TO CHECK MONEY IS BEYOND MY BELIEF UNLESS THAT MONEY HAD CHAKRA.
> 
> I don't think anyone knows just much it vexes me because it truly does.
> 
> How does the Byakugan work?
> 
> We just don't know.


End file.
